Welcome to a Very Outspoken Christmas. It's that time of year to crank Mariah Carey in the car and begin your Christmas shopping. Our names are Amy Kate and Sophie Torba. We're identical triplets and during the festive season, we have an identical opinion. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. In this special series, we're discussing all things Christmas with help from some influential Australians.
Fo for your Clan, Call for your clan cl clue and with Santas wiz strat white ass down there, Jimmy Day, He's going to.
Find a jobbiest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse. Hello and welcome to episode three of a Very Outspoken Christmas. Today we are joined by Eliza Reid, who runs popular Instagram account bargain Homews. She is going to be sharing her Christmas shopping tips and tricks from where to shop and what sales to take advantage of. And some of you may recognize her name because she is in our
Facebook community and we love having a part of it. Oh, she's a legend and there her comments crack me up sometimes before we get into the interview. Kay, You've got to tell everybody about your massive shopping wind that you had a few years ago. Well, I was in Bed Bath and Table and I saw this amazing twig winter style Christmas tree with gold lights, and it was so beautiful and I'd never really seen one before, and it was fifty percent off, so I think I saved around
two hundred dollars on it. And the funniest thing was because I'd bought it right then, it was like mid December, when it was so packed in the store we had to get a trolley to wheel it out. And to say I look like a dickhead is an understated It was the funniest thing because this tree is massive, Like it's not that it's hugely tall, but it's very wide.
The thing was, though, that made it look even more ridiculous, was they decided to put a bed Bath and Table shopping bag on top of the tree, so you looked like even more of a wainker walking around the shop with it. Well, at least it didn't look like I'd stolen it. Do you know what I loved? It seemed like you got such value out of that tree because it wasn't just up at Christmas time. When we lived together, it turned into an Easter tree at Easter time, a
birthday tree, everything, everyday tree. Really, it's a very good investment there. Well, we'll talking about trees. Has anyone been seeing that a lot of influencers are starting to put their Christmas trees up? Yeah? I have. I've been so disappointed by the very pitiful displays of these Christmas trees. They just look cheap and tacky, and I feel like saying, don't these people have money?
Yeah?
And the fact that they're rushing to put the trees up. I mean, I'm not trying to tree shame, but they look very cheap and taki tree. I've got to say. I saw Courtney Mangnan put up her Christmas tree and that was looking as Saffron Barker would say, bang in. Well, Saffron Barker put her tree up and hers was also amazing. I'm wondering if it was about some hill tree. Oh, i'd have to be. That being said, I feel like
Courtney and Saffron's trees would be rather expensive. And we are talking about bargains today, So Eliza's going to be talking us through where you can find the best bargain Christmas trees because you can still make them look really nice even on a budget. Yeah, we were ragging on Taki Christmas trees, but this is a tip to actually have your Christmas tree look good on a budget. Can I just say though, like, here's my tip. I'm not
a professional, but fill your tree with bables. Like you've got an ugly, lie looking tree, put beautiful bubbles all over it. Hide the ugly tree. Yeah, exactly right. There's nothing worse than a tree that looks like it's missing ornaments. I mean, they don't cost much from Kmart. You can get a whole box of them for I don't know, twenty dollars a cheap tip here as well. Put some lights on your Christmas tree. They always look more beautiful when they're lit up. Do you know I'm seeing a
lot of it at the moment. I'm seeing a lot of those flowers. Oh yeah, it kind of made me want to get some. Yeah. Well, Victoria Devine who was on our podcast last week, she had a gorgeous looking tree that she shared in our Facebook community and that really did inspire me to, yeah, potentially add some big white flowers to mine. Can I be honest, I don't really like the flowers, Like I could never see myself putting flowers on a Christmas tree because it's just not me.
Mine's more of the sort of tacky Christmas tree. Well it's not. No, I'm not gonna let you say that your tree is tacky. So it's not tacky. It has the sentimental ornaments on it, and it's like a bright, colorful, fun tree. Yeah. With lots of theme. Yeah, with lots of Penguin decorations. That's a thing. It's all about having a theme. I don't care if people have cheap baubles or a cheap tree. It's about the effort you put in, because you can make some really cool decorations as well.
I feel like Target has some of the best baubles. And also if you don't have heats of money to spend, wal Wells and Coals also have a great selection. Well. I don't want to start giving too many tips out
because I know Eliza covers some amazing things. But I was watching a Netflix show called Holiday Homemakers with Mister Christmas, and he was being very extravagant, like there were things that you could never afford, but one thing that I thought looked really cool was he was putting pine cones on the tree and he said, it's a really good tip to put those on a fake tree because it kind of looks makes it look more realistic. Can I just say I love how you casually drop mister Christmas.
Who is mister Christmas? I've not seen this show. Well, it's on Netflix. I don't actually know what his real name is, but that's his name he goes by on the show. So he's a designer. Yeah, he's this fabulous guy and he goes around people's houses and he does them up for Christmas. So there was a family that had never hosted Christmas before and yeah, he helped them with their decorations. It's really cool just talking about TV shows. I'
a Christmas recommendation out there. It's the Worst Week of My Life Christmas Special, which is an English TV series and it is bloody hilarious. Oh my god, this is the best. I really want to watch this now. I know I'm trying to work out which one of us has the DVD because I was tempted to go down to one of the op shops to see if they had it. I believe I may have stole it in our first move, so I'll have to have a look through.
I thought I might have one too well. I want to watch it because it follows the life of a married couple, Howard Steele and his wife mel and just the most embarrassing things happened to this guy in front of his mother and father in law. So I definitely
recommend it now. I was excited about this one. The Vicar of Dibley is bringing out a special Lockdown mini series and this is, of course a show that started in the nineties, is one that we grew up watching, and it's going to be showing them basically experiencing Christmas in Lockdown. So the Vicar of Dibley, Geraldine, she is going to be giving her sermons via zoom. It's going
to be really interesting to watch. Sadly, a lot of the actors have died who appeared in the original series, so I'm really interested to see how if they place those actors with new actors. Yeah, it should be interesting to see. It does give it a bit of a downer the fact that a lot of the actors have died, but I am looking forward to watching that. Talking about the UK. Has anyone seen Boris Johnson's new rules that he's applying around Christmas? Well, i've heard that the pubs
weren't open anymore. Well, there's a tiered system and it's basically like Tier one, Tier two, tier three, and it's really dependent on which tier that you're in, and a lot of the tiers allow the pub to be open till ten pm. However, the thing that peaked my interest was the fact that between December twenty fourth and December twenty eighth, they're just going, oh whatever with the restrictions
just for Christmas. Isn't it that you you're in a Christmas bubble, so you have to choose who the four families are that you want to spend Christmas with, which I'm assuming would cause quite a lot of argument. Yes, but the tiered system, even it doesn't matter what tier you're in, you can still spend Christmas with those four families during that period. Like I say, four families is a lot of people. You think about the potential spread through four families, and it sounds like there's no rules
in place about how big a family is. We've seen the damage that's been caused by one family getting in Adelaide, So it's pretty scary. I feel like they've almost gone whatever. Let's just wait for the vaccine to come and you know, let it do it. Christ's miracle. The scariest thing though, is that they're obviously entering winter. You know, we're quite lucky here that we're going into summer, because this is just going to be catastrophic over winter. I feel so
sorry for everyone over there at the moment. Can I just say, though, for people's mental health? Can you imagine everyone's had the worst year ever? We all need a little bit of Christmas cheer. I can kind of see why they've lifted it, because, to be honest, it could have been anarchy if they hadn't, because people probably would have just gone off. Fuck it, I'm going to break
the rules. Well, it's quite ironic that you've recommended the TV show The Worst Christmas of My Life, because I feel like there's a few Brits out there that would be having it a lot tougher than Howard Stern had it. Oh, I don't know about that. If you guys do watch it, please post in our Facebook community your thoughts, because I feel like everyone's gonna love it. I think we should start a thread in our community for Christmas TV specials.
I'm all for movies, but I have a soft spot for TV series because you can watch multiple ones and really binge on them. Yeah, it's easier to watch within your normal rotation of TV shows rather than committing to a movie. Because last night I started watching Holiday even though everyone said it was shit, it wasn't as bad as I thought because I had low expectations. But it's literally gone for two hours and they haven't even got to Christmas yet. Yes, I'm trying to find a troubleman
door witto. Do you have any moneer back? Alasa, you run an incredibly popular bargain hunter's page called Bargain Homewares. It's really seemed to have struck a chord with so many people. You're now sitting at over one hundred thousand followers on Instagram. What was it that motivated you to start the page to begin with?
So it was actually just after I'd moved out of my university sharehouse and into an apartment where I wanted to buy a nice furniture and deco, but I still had the budget of a Unie student who was working in my first full time job. So I was constantly scaring Kmart Target Big w to see where I could get the most of my dollars. And this was about the time when Kmart had just started to boom, So I don't know. Do you guys remember when they had
like all the marble and rose gold stuff. Yeah, yeah, it was five years ago, but that was when I finished decorating my flat and then I had everything I needed. I just missed going into the store and seeing what was new, so I created the page to share bargains with anyone else who may need them, and it man.
I got to keep going window shopping.
Have you always been this thrifty and if so, what would be the most thriftiest thing you've ever done? Like, is there any furniture you've recycled or upscaled something?
Yes, definitely.
I've always been one of those people who shots shops and I get excited over council pickup when people put their furniture out onto the side of the roads that they don't want anymore. So I'm glad that now there's a platform like Facebook Marketplace, so you don't have to go around in your car at night looking at what people throw at That's probably the most drastic thing that I've done is upcycled furniture that people have put out on the side of the road.
Definitely, but I still am thrifty. Now.
I have a rule that if I want to buy something in store that's full price, I have to wait until I've looked at it at least three times before I decide if I really need it.
And even then, I don't really ever buy anything full price.
I wait until it goes on sale or I'll try to find a discount code before I purchase it.
Gosh, those are some good tips I think Sophie needs to implement that well. Christmas is probably is obviously one of the most expensive times of the year. Just how important is it to come up with a bit of a game plan when it comes to budgeting over the festive season.
Yeah, so Christmas is definitely the most expensive time of the year for most people, and I think it's something that you need to budget for all year round.
You can't just get to December and then try to budget.
So for me, I work out how much I'm going to spend on each person's presence as well as other spending like social activities over the silly season, how much money I need for holidays if you're going away, and then I start saving from the start of the year, So each week I just put X amount of dollars into a savings account that's specifically for Christmas. And you know, if you need two thousand dollars, then each week you
would put forty dollars aside. I also don't touch any of my Woolworths and Flybys points as well as cash back money from cash rewards and shot back throughout the year, and then I claim them at Christmas time.
I do think it's funny.
I get a lot of people on my page that message me saying, but you know, doesn't make a difference because it's such a small percentage. Or Flybys points, you only get ten dollars every two thousand dollars you spend. But if you're getting the points or cash backs just for doing normal shopping that you would be doing anyway, like groceries and petrol, then why not take advantage of it.
There's so many places that do them now that really, once you roll them all into each other and bundle it up, I personally always get to blot about six hundred dollars every year on Christmas time.
Wow, it's so good that you say that, because Amy pays me out so much. When I bring out my loyalty cards, like I get shamed in front of the cat. I'm glad it's because I've been boosting all of my Woolworth points and it really makes a difference. I keep getting heaps of these ten dollars out just but I haven't been saving them, which I probably need to do now.
Yeah, I think it's just a good idea.
It obviously takes a bit of self control, but it pays off when you know that most expensive time of the year does come.
What about when it comes to decorations, because I feel like that's probably a lot of people's favorite part of Christmas is decorating their home. What are the best stores to go to to get some bargain decorations.
So I've recently been going everywhere to check out the Christmas stock and the biggest range and cheap ass options that I have seen so far is definitely at Kama. That is your one step shop for decorations, gift giving, and they've also got a great entertaining and tableware range.
They've got a big range of tree decorations, so you can get bulk packs where ornaments start at just fifteen cents, to individual ornaments ranging from one to three dollars, outdoor light, Santa Sax, costumes, everything like you name it, came up or have it. I'm also not sure if people know this, but Christmas stores are literally in every major city that
are open all year round. So because I'm an event manager, i would run a lot of themed Christmas events and sometimes people want to do those in July and you kind of like, oh, well, way do you get bombonds? So there's actually these things called Christmas Warehouses and they are all over like Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane, and they do large decorations but made with cost effective materials, so felt snowflakes or Hessian table runners and things like
that that are really cheap. And if you're buying like a whole family and you need thirty bon bonds, they're the places that do the really bulk things. So it's pretty much like the costco of Christmas Day recreation store.
Oh my gosh, it sounds like heaven.
Now.
Now we've we've been having a debate on the podcast about real verse fake Christmas trees. I gotta ask do you have a real tree or a fake one?
So we normally do a real tree in my family. Yes,
because you can get them so readily available now. And this is something that you guys talked about on a previous podcast episode and I thought it was funny that people didn't know that you can get real trees in Australia because you can get them at Bunnings, you can get them at Woolworths is actually somewhere that I saw them last year for seventy dollars, or if you can go through your local like Footy club or the Lions Club because those places donate the money to charity and
they sell real trees as well for around one hundred dollar mark.
Yeah, as a bargain hunter, do you think it's too extreme to be paying one thousand dollars for Christmas tree? So if you wanted to get or is that what you like to eight hundred dollars now?
Yeah, I mean I could never do that.
I think there's definitely like, if you're wanting a tree to last and you're investing in it, I think go for like a mid middle of the range tree. But yeah, there's some of the ones like Balsam Hill, you know, fifteen hundred dollars. I could personally never spend that.
Actually, we were talking to a client before and she said that she spent three thousand dollars on her Christmas tree, so that was including the decorations, and she just whipped out her phone and showed me a photo. It was very impressive. But Hill, no, it was actually one from David Jones, So yeah, it was Hugge.
Heard that to happen like place work in retail, so people would say that they'd get customers come in that were time poor but obviously had money, and they just point at a tree and say, can I buy the whole thing?
Oh, we decorated and yeah, some of.
Those decorations in like my own David Jones, you know, twenty dollars a piece.
Wow, I did hear. I think I read around Christmas time last year that there is a job going and you just decorate people's trees. I thought, how amazing would that? Because I decorated my own tree like three times last year to try and make it look perfect and it still lost our podcast poll for the worst.
That would be a really good job. Well, there's people doing that. It's pantries now. And you know, my sisters think I should make my page a job and starting home organization.
You should.
I love being an event manager, so that's great running the pages.
Well, back to Christmas trees. Is it a good time to actually buy a fake Christmas tree after Christmas? In the post Christmas sales or is that? Is it? You know other decorations too, like is that the best time to.
Buy or yeah?
So it really depends on what level you're going for. If you're just one in the cheap, you know, kind of cost effective options from Kmart, tug, big w they're not going to go on and sale before Christmas, so you can go now, and it's actually probably better to go now because things will sell out, especially this year with coronavirus. There's been delayed to shipping, so I know some stores are already having trouble getting stock and they're doing another big drop in November. So yeah, I wouldn't
wait if you're wanting that. But if you are buying like for example, bus and hill tree or some of the nicer ornaments from bed Bath and Table or Maya, then I would either wait for the boxing day sales or we now also have these new days like after Payday, Amazon Prime Day, and Black Friday, so they'll fall in the second half of the year and you can definitely pick your tree up then if you don't want to
wait until after Christmas. Black Friday actually falls on the twenty seventh of November for anyone wondering, and that's a perfect time to get those big ticket items, even presents as well. If you're buying like electronics, they're all majorly marked down in the Black Friday sales.
I was going to say, when you mentioned that there'd be a shortage of Christmas trees, I could literally just imagine Kate and so Panic buying Christmas decorations right now in Kama. I wonder if that's going to happen, if people are just going to be walking around trolley's promote panic. Yeah noo, yeah.
I think it has been happening. And also, like, because I'm in Victoria, people you know Melbourne can't go to the store, so they're just buying things crazily online. And then regionally, we're only supposed to go, you know, when we need to. So I definitely have been doing bigger shops because I used to go to cam Up three times a week and spend fifty dollars, but now I'm only.
Going once a month, so I'm spending like five in one trip. But at least you can you can return and exchange if you If you overshop.
Or getting into presents now, it can start getting very expensive when you have to also buy for your partner as family. What are some of your tips for trying to keep the cost down.
I would one hundred percent recommend doing a secret Santa. So in our family we buy for immediate family, but for all of the extended family like cousins, etc. We do a twenty dollars secret Santa, and that honestly works so well. People also put in like joke presents, so it provides entertainment factor as well, and that's always so much fun.
I really look forward to that.
I think for your partner's family, you just need to establish whether everyone's giving an individual gift or not. But if you can try to keep it simple and just give them a bottle of wine or take something for the whole household, like make a pavlova, That's what I always try to do. I think bake goods are always a winner and I will share my secret.
Gingerbread recue with you guys if you want. I always give cookies to my work colleagues as.
Well, because ten dollars in baking ingredients can go a long way.
Oh love it?
Are you going to share it with the community as well?
You're yeah, I'm going to put it.
We'll put it in the show notes as well.
Yes, I've had it since I was fourteen, and I swear.
But oh wow, So do you make a gingerbread house or just gingerbread people?
No, I just do like gingerbread people snowflakes.
That's so exciting. What about for I suppose mostly it's women listening, But if there's any guys listening and they're looking for their wives or girlfriend, what would be a good gift that I suppose won't break the budget?
Mm hm.
So I actually have a Christmas gift guide in a highlight on my Instagram page, and I mainly did it for women as well, because all my followers are women like you. But if you look at the sisters or the Chris Kringle or the beauty category, that would be perfect for women our age. So I included things like a caseify personal iPhone, case active where skincare prints from
local artists. Indoor plants are massive this year, and there's also a homewos section with lots of the Ratten goodies beating, because I think that's what people our age are really wanting this year, more homeways really than fashion. Things like indoor plants are so popular at the moment.
There's some great ideas.
I know.
So sex boyfriend's mum she gave her what was it like? It was some kind of like blue duck like.
Well it was.
He told me, it's like, you're never going to get over this present she's got you. It's incredible. And then I open up this like porcelain blue chicken. I was like, what the hell you have to put it in the Facebook community picture of it because it's Unbelievable's the ugliest thing you've ever said. It was really expensive as well for a garden. Well, she had her own collection of these chickens, so I don't know it's some like hideous like I suppose it might be some sort of artwork
from the jam factory. To be fair, that the thought was there because she loved them, but it just wasn't something that you would want in your own house. Well, have you ever seen Larry? Have you ever received a really awful present like that from a family member or a partner or anything. Elisa might not want to say on this.
No, I can say because my grandma definitely won't listen to the pub. She's so beautiful. But she every year will make like pottery for us, because she makes pottery and she does some really nice things, and I've actually loved some of the pieces. But every year she'll give us each something just like a little bit random, like a coffee mug, but it's like a really gross blade. You know those original glazers that's like blue and brown and green. Oh no, yeah, So we just give them back to my mum.
Usually, go mum would have a whole set of them.
Yeah. I think she probably has like twenty.
Now, now, what about boyfriends? I feel like they are often quite difficult to buy for. What are some gift ideas that you've got for them?
So I did a boyfriend section specifically in the gift guide and it's easy for me. I could go on and on forever about that because I'm always trying to think of things to get my boyfriend.
But some of my favorite ones were custom artwork.
So I got this done recently for his birthday and it was by Louly Cartoons. And they do like cartoon characters, but if you send in pictures of yourself, they draw them, so you can do like the Simpsons or Adventure Time or Brick and Cording.
And I got him our dog and myself in little cartoon characters, So that's okay.
He loves that I got.
Yeah, and they.
Always do sales like I think they're normally one hundred dollars, but I got it for way less and at the moment, yeah, they're like under fifty dollars, So I don't know how they do it with the time that the artists put in.
That's a great one.
Otherwise, if you're looking for clothing, I think you can't go past like a country road sweater. Or if they're more on a casual side, I've put a bunch of party shirts in there, like places like Barney Cools or Uncle Recco do some funny ones, especially that silly season.
Or if you're wanting to give them something that will.
Also give a gift to yourself, you could give them like a cocktail pack. You get pre made ones from Melbourne Martini, or you can buy like a shaker set or something and then hopefully they'll make some cocktails for you.
The gift that just keeps giving with that one that's.
Right, or he's a try to give something that will benefit me as well.
And what about great stocking stuff for ideas for kids that won't break the budget.
So with stocking stuffers, I think you should always try to give them something useful that they can play with rather than just filling it with junk. So something creative like plato or craft items are usually cheap. Otherwise, books
are an affordable option as well. I've got a nephew who's three and he is obsessed with Bluey and they just released all these activity books for six dollars that are filled with like Christmas active so that will also keep kids entertained on car trips and things like that in the school holidays. Things like pencils and pencil cases that you need for school anyway also a good stocking stuffer.
And my mom always put in things that we needed like underwear or socks or too splashes, but she made sure that they were fun ones like Barbie themed, because it's stuff that you're going to buy for them anyway, so you may as well put it in the stocking.
That's so cute. Just moving on to wrapping paper and my boyfriend he wraps everything in alfoil, and I've had to try and convince him that, you know, just get some wrapping paper. Are there any sort of hacks for saving money when it does come to getting your gifts wrapped or wrapping gifts yourself and not using alfoil. Yes, let's get rid of alfhoil altogether.
What about glad wrap that might not be very environmental.
Honestly, I save money on wrapping paper just throughout the year by saving it up from present that other people give me, and even sell a phane and tissue paper from flower arrangements. I just keep it all in the cupboard and then I repurpose it. Also, I love buying rolls of brown paper and wrapping gifts in that with a nice ribbon or just a bit of twine. And if you're super crafty, you can add some greenery from outside or pine cones. If you live you know somewhere
where you can grab some pine cones. You can always like spray them with a bit of glitter or a bit of gold and just add that on and that's really simple and cheap, but looks gorgeous, And I think people always appreciate it when you go the extra mile to do something that's handmade or Eliza.
What about when it comes to presence you don't like. Do you think it's best to try and get the receipt from people and return it or do you think it's best to just be sneaking, maybe put it up on marketplace or come true.
I think it depends on how well you know the person really Like if it was an immediate family member, I would have no problem returning the item and asking them for the receipt. But if it's extended family or in laws or a work colleague, you probably wouldn't want
to ask them. So at Christmas time, a lot of stores have more lenient return policies if you know where they bought the item, like say, if it was a piece of clothing and it's still got the tag, you can check to see if the store would do in exchange or a credit note without the receipt. Otherwise, you can always keep it for regifting, sell it online, or donate it.
We actually did something really sneaky. I hope our auntie doesn't listen to this, but she always used to give us like bath stuff that we didn't really use. So we took it to David Jones and swapped it for a Nigella Christmas cooking book. And I think it was the best decision we've ever made. That's because literally, our
auntie she only shopped at David Jones. That's like literally, yeah, she ever goes to So yeah, we didn't need the receipt, but I was going to say, you probably you could probably pick up some good bargains as well on Facebook Marketplace after Christmas, because if everyone's trying to get rid.
Of stuff, yeah, one hundred percent.
I always look at for vouchers actually, because like some people would rather get the money than get a store vouchers, So especially ones that I always shop at, like Kmart or Bunnings, people will sell like one hundred dollars gift vouchers on Marketplace for eighty dollars because they'd rather the cash. And then you can just keep them in your wallet and then next time you're going to go to that store and buy stuff anyway, you've already got a discount sitting there.
I feel like I know what we're all gonna be doing on Boxing Day or just like scouring the marketplace.
Yeah, you can do the same for holidays, like a lot of times around Christmas people are selling flights cheap or holiday accommodation. Obviously it'll be a bit different this year, but that's also a good tip to look out for around Christmas and Easter.
That's so good. Well, talking about Boxing Day, of course there's a Boxing Day sales. Do you have any tips for getting the most out of the Boxing Day sales?
So for Boxing Day sales, you really want to go in store.
A lot of the deals are in store only, or things sell up online real quickly, or they could even
already be out of stock from Christmas sales. So if you're serious about Boxing Day sales, you need to sit down, figure out which shopping center you're going to, and then map out a plan of which stores you'd like to go to in order of when they open or your priority of what you're wanting to buy, and then head in store if you can check the opening times, because some of the major stores open as early as six am, Like I know in Sydney, Meyer in the city would
open at six am and then other stores open at eight am nine am, so you can still be in a queue for opening time if you map out the stores correctly, and it can be absolutely chaotic, so make sure you don't have much to carry. I usually just took like a little wallet and have all your Christmas gift cards and money ready to go if people have
given you gift cards or cash for Christmas. And if you're buying clothes, make sure that you wear a decent underwear or even a bikini because you're probably going to have to try clothes on in the middle of the store.
Do you have to get your elbows ready to sort of elbows people out the way when you're just running towards the room.
I mean normally, but this year it'll be one point that's distant. I don't know how they're going to do it. I don't know, if you know.
I don't know what they're going to do, honestly, because, yeah, I'm normally like in the middle of Maya trying on clothes in the aisles next to people.
Well, I saw it. You're not allowed to try and close in the stores at the moment, so I wonder if they'll put that in place over the Yeah, we haven't been.
Allowed in Victoria and they're actually which I think just makes it worse because then people have to take it home to try it on.
Yeah exactly, you can cough all over it at home and then return.
Yeah, and it is very weird and it means that people are taking things back like months later.
So I think it's worse.
They should just have people monitoring and maybe you know, blocking every second change room.
Oh exactly, just from being thrifty. How much money would you say that you personally and people listening could actually say from I suppose listening to some of.
Your advice, I think the Christmas savings really comes down to yearly budgeting and being organized time wise. So as I said before, I really start my budgeting from the start of the year, and then in about September October is when I write my Christmas list and work out what I'm spending per person and what I'm going to get them. So if you do that, you can put your notifications on for the stores or those items, and then when they're on sale, you can buy it for
them and you can actually get a half price. But they're not going to know that, They're going to think that you paid the retail price. So if you do that or you buy things in Black Friday sales, you can save a lot of money. It's not so much where you shop, but it's definitely spending extra time to compare prices. And that's why following bargain pages like mine can be a shortcut because when normally doing the research and comparisons for you, you don't have to run around
to all the different stores. And one of my top tips as well is make sure you stick to your budgets and shopping lists. Don't go crazy and just buy things that you don't need just because it's Christmas or
just because it's on sale. I was looking up some figures before I did a Black Friday interview and apparently Australian spent eighteen point eight billion dollars of Christmas last year, so it obviously is the biggest money spending in the shopping industry for the year, so just be mindful of that.
I like I said before, I save up all my vouchers at the end of the year and that normally gives me about six hundred dollars to put towards Christmas, and then putting the money aside each each week throughout the year means that I'm not stressed at Christmas and buying things on sale. I would say that I probably save about twenty percent off the cost of presents because I never really buy anything full price.
I always use a discount code or wait for a sale.
And if I normally spend about eight hundred dollars on my family for Christmas, that's like parents, extended family, and my boyfriend, then I'm saving about one hundred and sixty dollars a year and I can buy something for myself as well.
And just to finish up on where can people find you on Instagram if they want to check out your page?
So it's just at bargain, Underscore, homewares or in lowercase letters love it.
We're addicted to your page, so everyone's going to go follow it.
Fast on Frosty, they do not get rashes.
We do want to finish off this interview though, with a quick fun Christmas quiz, and I think you love Christmas Tess as much as us, so I feel like you'll get a kick out of it. Okay, it's just some quick fire questions. So the first very serious. The first one is tinsel or no tinsel?
No tinsel.
What is your go to Christmas movie? I think I already know this one? Love actually, And what is your go to Christmas song? Well?
It has to beam I carry all I want for Christmas?
I love it obviously.
Is that not everyone?
Yeah?
I know.
I wonder if anyone is going to answer something different. So our dad's favorite Christmas song is Holy Jolly Christmas and he wants how to on repeat when our mum's family came over to see if anyone noticed, So it played on repeat for two hours until anyone said anything. Yeah, but that's not really the demography. Real tree or fake tree?
Real tree?
Do you say Santa Claus or Father Christmas? I just say Santa cold custard or warm custard with Christmas pudding.
It has to be warm, yeah.
Putting or pavlova.
My Grandma's pudding.
Roast or seafood.
Oh that's hard. I'll say a roast, but a glazed ham.
And when did you find out Santa wasn't real?
I think it was in year two after I watched the Santa Claus with you know, the movie?
Yea, what do you guys mean? He's not real? Yeah? And what is I know we already touched on the worst present, But what's the best Christmas present you've ever gotten?
Oh that's a hard question. Well, I'm actually obsessed with One Direction, and I know we went to the.
Cliset, so I feel like we could be best friends after hearing.
Yeah, I went to all their as well.
And because their stuff started getting like discontinued when they disbanded a lot of their like perfumes and the memorability that they did, my mom went around last year to like all the chemists warehouses and bought their first perfume. It's called our Moment, and she gave me like twenty of them so that I have enough stock now for like the next ten we have one of them.
Yeah, that must be a mom thing. Our mom keets buying that perfume, Like not in twenty bottles, but we had that with we Love Hillary Duff and the with Love perfume. It's been discontinued, but it was the best. Like I'm so sad I don't have that anymore.
That's the thing, Like people always ask me, what's your perfume?
I love it, And I just love telling them one Direction because they do not expect that it's so funny, it's the best.
Well, thank you so much. We've loved having you on the podcast. Thanks for making the time.
Thank you it was really exciting.
Well that's probably all we have time for. Thank you so much for joining us for today's episode. If you have enjoyed it, it'd be amazing if you could share where you're listening from on your Instagram and tag us out, Outspoken, Underscore, the Underscored Podcast. And if you did enjoy this episode, we'd love if you could help us out and leave us a review on the Apple Podcast charts. So many of you messaging saying you love the podcast, so if you do want to help, go and leave us a review