This blog has been written in partnership with Woolworths

As you guys know, Christmas is my favourite time of the year but I have found that the key to enjoying the festive season is making sure you are prepared and keeping it simple to reduce any holiday stress.

So I thought I would share some of my money, time and sanity saving tips and hacks to ensure a stress free Christmas!!

Shop Online & Track Your Spend

I have always found shopping online is the best way to easily track my spending and stay on within budget.

Especially when you consider any additional costs to heading out to the shops like petrol, parking, or even impulse purchases.

It also gives you an opportunity to compare different products for better prices, and audit your cart before checking out and making any changes or removing any items if it takes you over budget.

When grocery shopping, I like to use features that allow me to search items by unit pricing. And take advantage of any specials I may not have known about otherwise.

Use Delivery or Pickup To Skip The Crowds

The ultimate time and sanity saver. Once you’ve ordered your groceries online, select a delivery or pickup window to avoid the crowds and skip the lines.

Make sure you are prepared and get your orders done at least a week prior.

With Woolworths, you can easily use their app to have your groceries delivered direct to your boot with Pick Up.

And if you are worried that you won’t get exactly what you are after. Then utilise the notes section for your personal shopper. Here you can let them know things like ‘how ripe you’d like your avocado’.

You can check out their Pick Up or Delivery services here.

Create Shopping Lists & Spread Out Your Spending

While planning out my Christmas shopping and budget, I like to create a ‘list’. I do this well in advance of my big Christmas shop and use it as a way to plan out menus and organise gifting.

I then add things from this list in the weeks leading up like bulk items, non-perishable and decorations to help spread out the costs.

It’s also a good way to not forget anything and allows you to consistently add anything as you need it.

Then when you need to put that Christmas order in, you can easily double check your list and make sure you’re all covered for Christmas!

DIY Your Gifting

If you are looking for a fun and affordable way to create some beautiful gifts, then why not create some beautiful DIY hampers or dessert boxes?

We created these delicious dessert boxes using some of the Christmas items available from Woolworths this year. Each box cost us less than $15 and came up a treat.

Here are some great ideas for the boxes:

Woolworths Caramel Fudge

Woolworths Free From Gluten Iced Fruit Cake Slices

Woolworths Candy Cane Mint

Lindt Fudge Swirl Bag

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Use Your Everyday Rewards

Woolworths Everyday Rewards program is fantastic as there are three ways you can easily use your points to boost your Christmas shopping.

Depending on which is most valuable to you, you can either bank your points to use for money off your shop, spend straight away or save up and enjoy when you like across shops in multiples of $10 off.

You can also bank for Christmas Save and enjoy your savings from 1st of December to 1st of January each year.

And last but not least, you can earn Qantas Points which can be used towards flights or spent at the Qantas Store.

Woolworths is also currently running a collectible glass containers promotion where you can earn Container Credits to go towards glass containers.

‘Another added bonus this Christmas!