Thrifty Portsmouth mum explains how she starts saving early for Christmas - and puts away £1,000
This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement.
Kelly has shared her tips and tricks for squirrelling away money for the festive season
A Portsmouth mum has revealed her food shop tricks to save £1,000 for Christmas - including scanning her supermarket receipts and using cashback apps.
Kelly Miles, 33, begins saving up for Christmas presents for her two kids, 12 and 10, in the summertime, to save herself the financial burden when the festive period rolls around.
As she works full time as a service manager, Kelly is “time poor”, so only has the capacity for side hustles that require minimal effort.
Her main money maker is using cashback sites, and so far, she has made over £500, just from making regular day to day purchases.
She also makes £250 a year scanning the receipt from her weekly shop and uploading it to apps which collect market research data.
Kelly predicts that by Christmas she will have saved £1,000 to put towards Christmas presents.
She said: “Christmas is just so expensive, and I think if you only start saving in October or November you just won’t have enough, particularly if you have kids.
“It’s not just the presents, it’s the food, the travel and everything else, especially with the cost of bills being so high and the moment. It helps take the stress away, and you get better deals earlier on as well. It’s so much better going into it prepared rather than your finances taking a tumble.”
Kelly is a super thrifty mum and begins saving up for Christmas in June or July each year.
“My kids all have their birthdays towards the front end of the year, so I save up one half of the year for their birthdays, and the other half for Christmas”, she said.
Kelly’s main method for saving is by using cashback sites such as JamDoughnut, Rakuten and Top Cashback.
.jpeg?trim=0,0,0,0&crop=&width=640&quality=65)
JamDoughnut is primarily used by Kelly for her weekly shop which costs her around £100 a week.
Using the app, she buys a gift card for a supermarket and then gets around 5% or 6% cashback in her account.
“That’s £5 or £6 a week, and it really adds up”, she said.
“I put all of the money towards presents for my kids, partner and the rest of the family”.
Rakuten is another cashback site Kelly recommends, and she uses this to purchase train travel, hotel stays and products from sites such as Shein and Temu.
To use the site, simply visit the Rakuten website, and then click on the retailer you would like to buy from, for example Boots.
Rakuten will then take you to the Boots website, and when you pay for your item, cashback will appear in your Rakuten account.
Kelly finds that Top Cashback is the best site to use for her yearly car insurance, energy supplier and home insurance switches.
“I got £45 in cashback this year just for switching my car insurance”, she said.
“For our big holiday I got £68 cashback, and for the energy bills switch I got £40.
“It literally takes 10 seconds to do, you can get quite a bit of money, for no effort.”
Kelly currently has £267 in her Jam Doughnut account, £143.60 and £144.37 in her Top Cashback account, making the total she has saved so far from cashback £554.97.
She also has another £102 pending in her cashback accounts, and got £40 in cashback from doing another switch with MoneySupermarket.
As she gets at least £5 in cashback per week from her food shop, Kelly estimates that in total she will have around £700 to £800 in cashback by Christmas.
“I even use cashback apps when I’m buying the kids’ Christmas presents, so I make money when I’m buying their gifts”, she said.
And cashback isn’t the only low-effort method Kelly is using to save for Christmas.
She also gets paid for scanning the receipt of her weekly shop and uploading it onto either Shop and Scan, and Nielson IQ, websites which collect market research data.
Kelly earns points for every scan, which she then converts into vouchers to use at retailers such as Amazon, Argos and New Look.
She currently has £30 in one platform and £50 in another platform, but she says she often makes £250 over the course of the year from it.
“It doesn’t sound like much, but that’s another £80 that I can put towards Christmas, just from scanning my shopping”, she said.
In total, this will put Kelly’s Christmas pot at £960, and with earning bits of extra cash from doing surveys, she could easily have over £1,000 by Christmas.
She will use the money for her kid's presents, including a dirt bike for her son and squishies for her daughter.
The £1,000 will cover most of her Christmas spending, whilst any extras will be paid for using gift cards Kelly gets through her Amex credit card.
“I work full time, and I’ve got kids, so I’m very time poor, don’t have hours to spend on side hustles”, she said. This is £1,000 for a really minimal amount of work”.
Breakdown of Kelly's Christmas spending
Kids' presents - £250 each
Food - £150
Gifts for Kelly and her partner - £200 for both
Friends and family - £200 altogether