Can you hear that? That’s the sound of retailers placing orders for ugly Christmas sweaters; Starbucks innovating this years festive frappe, and your mum calling every family member to ask who’s hosting Christmas lunch despite her saying ‘she’s not being responsible for it this year’. That’s right, tinsel time is upon us.
We know what you’re thinking (not because we’re spying on you. Nice top by the way).
‘Chip,’ you’ll say.
‘It hasn’t even been Halloween yet! I don’t want to let Michael Buble out just yet; I only just bought cat ears!’, you’ll cry.
But we’re realists here at Chip. And if you don’t want to be the family member gifting ‘free hug’ vouchers, you simply have to accept that Christmas preparation starts now. We all know Christmas shopping really should start now, too, but who are we kidding, hand us that pumpkin spiced latte.
Looking over our Chip Saver data, we can see A LOT of you have used Christmas as a goal, so we thought, why not put on some Mariah Carey and get into the spirit early.
Gone are the days where putting money aside during Christmas time was deemed impossible. We’re making Christmas that little bit easier, and now, gift finding easier, too. But don’t ask us for wrapping tips - unfortunately that isn’t one of our redeeming skills.
From your £10 Secret Santa to your I-don’t-need-anything-but-still-buy-me-something relative, we thought we’d get you motivated to create a new goal in the Chip app so you can have a very merry Chipmas (we’re getting coal for using that pun).
Turn up your nose at materialism? Struggling to find something for your anti-capitalism friend? Create some everlasting memories for your loved ones (and your Instagram feed) with these experience-based gifts:
Modern day card games: an equilibrium between the borderline-violent family Monopoly games and the short timeframe where in UNO is actually fun. Everyone has heard of Cards Against Humanity, so here are a few of our lesser known favourites (disclaimer: you might not want to play some of these with Grandma):
The beauty of gifting art is that no one really knows how much you spent on it. You can order a £17.99 print, doll it up in an IKEA frame and it looks like you put in a remarkable amount of effort, and also paints you as a tasteful admirer of the arts. Ha, fools.
Personalised gifts clearly convey this was no last minute scramble. It also means they can’t regift it. Genius, we know.
Save the planet while scoring the perfect present; killing two birds with one stone would be the wrong phrase to use here, but you see what we’re getting at.
We are all guilty of neglecting our disciplined spending habits come Christmas time. A gingerbread house here, a mulled wine there. Our job is to keep you on track without you even noticing. That’s our gift to you. Sorry we forgot the card.
Remember your Capital is at Risk and past performance is not a reliable guide to future returns. The value of your investment can go down as well as up and you might get back less than you originally invested.