Christmas Saver Account - Good idea? Where to go?

FionnK86

I spent €480 this year on Xmas. I'm 26 with a girlfriend and buy presents for 6 people in my family also.

I'm saving for mortgage and would like to reduce that to €360, not to be a scrooge but rather to encourage me to be a bit more thoughtful with gifts. I left a few up to last minute and ended up buying expensive nice gifts, rather than getting something useful for my family.

I saw Health Care Workers Credit union offer Christmas Savers, but as I'm not in that profession I can't apply. I'm in Aviation, but Aviate don't offer same either.

Has anyone had experience with these types of savers before, and if so, any good/bad experiences?

beggars_bush

Just set up a standing order into a notice deposit account

Collie D

I’d imagine most credit unions have some kind of Christmas or holiday savings scheme. Or just use a Revolut vault.

No interest on either but if it’s just a few hundred quid for Christmas you wouldn’t be getting much anyway.

FionnK86

Collie D wrote: »

I’d imagine most credit unions have some kind of Christmas or holiday savings scheme. Or just use a Revolut vault.

No interest on either but if it’s just a few hundred quid for Christmas you wouldn’t be getting much anyway.

There’s the rub, I’ve good interest on my deposit account (.55%) so better to leave it there for interest.

I see nothing out there in unions can beat it unfortunately but suppose everyone saving money these days.

Not to worry I’ll use deposit account so.

Thanks for the replies, happy new year!

phormium

Go old school I have a jar that I throw all 2 euro coins into every few days that I have accumulated, it averages 700 euro each year by Christmas. Now of course no good to you if you pay for everything by card, I'm a big fan of cash still I'm afraid. Mind you this years haul was well down to around 350 due to serious cut down on out and about shopping through most of year and some extra card use but still a tidy sum.

dotsman

FionnK86 wrote: »

There’s the rub, I’ve good interest on my deposit account (.55%) so better to leave it there for interest.

I see nothing out there in unions can beat it unfortunately but suppose everyone saving money these days.

Not to worry I’ll use deposit account so.

Thanks for the replies, happy new year!

You do not have a good interest rate.

From what I gather, you are talking about saving <500 euro over the course of a year? At 0.55%, you talking total interest of less than a euro. Given that interest rate is also likely to drop over the year, you are talking probably a few copper coins worth of interest.

gogo

Interest rates aside... it’s a good idea.

We save into a separate account for Christmas every month, get about 3.6k from it in December, both car insurances due in January, so it pays them, deposit for our annual holiday and covers Christmas in full (2kids/Santa & family). Good habit to get into, so used to it going out every month that we don’t miss it, it’s completely disposable funds and therefore means that Christmas etc is pretty much stress free, money wise.
Also takes the sting out of booking our holidays every year as I can have flights or accommodation booked at Christmas, when I can normally get a good deal during the sales.