Sorted’s top ten tips for Christmas spending

According to new research, the average British adult will spend £488 on Christmas this year. While this is a slight decline from the £526 spent last year, it is still a significant amount of money to club together over the festive period.

On average, we will each spend £336 on presents and £152 on food, drink and entertainment, with women spending more on presents and men spending more on food and drink.

So how do we keep costs down this Christmas without turning into Ebenezer Scrooge?

1. Set yourself a budget and stick to it. If you buy whatever you see without planning, you will end up spending far more. Work out exactly how much you are prepared to pay for each element: food, drink, presents, entertainment and transport. The Money Advice Service has set up a Christmas Money Planner that might help.
2. Use discount vouchers, loyalty points and multi-buy deals to stock up the fridge and freezer this year. Even small savings add up, so make sure you check dates and make sure you’re getting the best possible value on the groceries you buy.
3. Compare prices online. It is often possible to find a better deal by shopping around for the items you want. Remember to factor in delivery costs and to order well in advance so that all of your items arrive on time.
4. Start making small cutbacks now. Forgo that daily coffee or weekly takeaway, perhaps. Every penny counts, as a certain supermarket would say.
5. Get others involved. If you are in charge of hosting a big Christmas dinner, ask your guests to bring dessert, wine or even after dinner mints. It will make them feel more involved and help to cut costs for you.
6. Avoid taking out store cards, high-interest credit cards and – most importantly – payday loans. These can seem enticing and may even help to spread the cost in the short term, but you will end up paying back far more than you borrowed and potentially end up in a cycle of debt. If you do have to borrow money to cover Christmas spending, try to use a credit card that offers 0% on purchases for a few months. Then write out a budget detailing how you will repay this debt in the New Year.
7. Think about what you’re buying. One thoughtful and carefully planned gift is worth five run-of-the-mill presents. Listen out for hints from those around you and make a note of them. That way, the people you buy for get exactly what they want and you come off as the attentive husband/brother/father/colleague.
8. Give to charity for free with Care2Save. Ok, this won’t necessarily save you money, but by using this site, you can donate to charity at no extra expense when you shop online. The company has signed up 130 UK brands, so that when you buy from these brands through the site the affiliate fee will be given to charity.
9. Don’t forget to give to those in need. According to Shelter, 80,000 children in the UK will be homeless this Christmas. Many elderly people will be alone and without heating during the festive period. If you can afford to, a donation could be highly valued. If not, think of ways to help people in your community: volunteer at a soup kitchen, visit someone in hospital or drop off some groceries at a local food bank.
10. Get yourself Sorted! We couldn’t possibly give you ten top spending tips without encouraging you to buy the gift that keeps on giving: a gift subscription to Sorted magazine. Perhaps you know someone who loves to read and has fantastic taste. If so, click here. Or maybe you want to give a one-off gift to all the men in your life: family members, friends, colleagues, fellow sportsmen, church members and so on. If so, click here to buy one of our bumper boxes of 40 copies for just £50! Money well spent!

Feel free to add your own money-saving tips in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you.

Give a guy a break this Father’s Day

This Father’s Day, Compassion is urging support for men who fight against local culture and tradition to be the hands-on dads they long to be.

In many parts of the world being a ‘hands-on’ dad is frowned upon. Childcare is often considered the sole responsibility of the woman. 


Compassion believes this denies many children the opportunity to have a close relationship with their father and that it is detrimental to their development. 

According to Unicef, children perform better academically, have fewer discipline problems, and become more responsible adults when both their mother and father are actively involved in their learning and development.

Compassion child development centres are working alongside local churches to involve both parents in the development of the child, with a specific focus on encouraging men to take a more active role in their child’s life. Across the world there are waves of fathers who are rising up against the cultural binds that prevent them from being the kind of dads they long to be.

Twenty-year-old Allus Yikwa is just one example. He’s part of the Wamena tribe in Western New Guinea, where gender lines are strongly drawn. When Allus lost his wife, the pressure within his community to give his son Yalimur away was fierce. He faced a lifetime of rejection and shame, but still he stood firm. 

“I do not want to give Yalinur to someone else, including my relatives or wife’s relatives,” he says with resolution. “I should take the responsibility of taking care of him. I cook, wash, plant, and take care of Yalinur by myself. I have lost my wife. I do not want to lose my son.”

Thankfully, through the Compassion project, Allus found staff to help him learn how to take care of his son and become the father he longed to be. Life isn’t easy, but he no longer has to walk it alone.

Compassion is a fantastic child development charity that serves more than 1.3 million children in 26 of the world’s poorest countries.

Read more about Compassion in the next issue of Sorted magazine. 

Why the homeless may soon be looking trendier than you

If you’ve ever been to a market or travelled to a tourist destination, you’ve probably come across counterfeit designer goods of some kind. Buying a pair of knock-off Nike trainers, a Gucci watch or a Ralph Lauren shirt at a heavily discounted price is understandably tempting for many.

But there are two major drawbacks associated with fake goods:

Quality: I bought a “designer” watch in Ibiza and it had stopped working by the time I got home. Lesson learnt!

Social/economic impact: it puts people out of jobs, puts consumers at risk and often empowers crime syndicates connected with child labour, human trafficking, money laundering and even terrorism, according to the experts.

If in doubt, avoid buying pirated gear! (Unless of course it’s the Jack Sparrow kind.)

But there is at least one positive outcome emerging from the counterfeiting crisis. A UK charity is giving the fakes a new future; as much-needed clothing for the homeless. Although they are usually handed to Customs or Trading Standards to be incinerated, His Church has been given the go-ahead to redistribute these clothes to those who really need it.

Buckinghamshire Trading Standards was the first authority to get involved in the scheme, followed: by Trading Standards in Manchester, Liverpool and London; West Midlands Police, the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police; and UK Customs. And now the charity is getting calls from as far away as America to deal with offending items of fake fashion.

Even the sewing machines His Church uses to patch over counterfeit labels were seized by UK Customs officials from the criminal gangs creating the counterfeit clothing and passed on. It’s a win-win situation: the homeless benefit and officials don’t have to pay to store or destroy the garments.

Charity co-ordinator Richard Humphrey told the BBC: "It's all come round in a virtuous circle," says Richard. "It's a genuinely inspired idea which we've put into practice by faith and it's just borne fruit."

Rebranding takes place at the charity’s Lincolnshire warehouse, where around 30 volunteers give up their time to make the clothes legally wearable. According to Richard, the quality of most of the items he receives is excellent.

These high-quality items are then sent to around 250 homeless centres and women's shelters across the country. And even garments that are too heavily branded to patch over can be salvaged; the charity has permission to send them overseas, providing the destination is outside the EU.

"So many of us go through life talking about projects we're going to do and we talk and talk about them but somehow we just never quite get round to doing them,” Richard told the BBC.  

"So I guess we decided to come at it from the opposite end; don't bother talking, just do it."

An apt choice of words, given the topic in question.