Our re-cycled Christmas

I love charity shops and ebay. Last year we bought our son a Thomas track which would have been £60 new. We bought it on ebay for £10. Our daughter has quite a collection of Barbies courtesy of the local charity shops. We also buy children's books there. Last month I bought six children's books including Mog the Forgetful Cat and The Tiger Who Came To Tea in a deal....six books for £1!!!

Our children are often little second hand Roses in the clothes department too. Ebay have such bargains. Our daughter's favourite dress atm cost us £3.00 including postage. It's a Roche John Roche from Debenhams and still had the labels on it. I only look at designer labels....I can afford George and Primark but I can't afford Mini-Boden, Monsoon etc. However they're the clothes our children tend to wear lol. The quality is so good when they outgrow them I put them back on ebay.

I also use Freegle which is our local version of Freecycle. Someone had a dolls house to give away. When we went to collect it we were amazed. We'd expected a little cheap thing but it was a little girls dream with so much furniture she could dress it three different ways.

I often travel to a few of the 'richer'villages near here and look in their charity shops as the folk in the locality seem to 'pass on' clothes and items that have hardly been worn..get loads of bargains! Years ago when DDs were small the local MIND shop was run by a 'lady from up the hill' in Wimbledon village. My girls had two beautiful velvet collared coats from Harrods for Christmas!

Car boot sales are also a good source of toys - many hardly used and some still in the box. When you have seen the prices of things in the Early Learning Centre you realise just what a bargain you are getting. Often people just want to get everything cleared out so are happy to sell for a low price just to get rid of things.

A friend of mine always haunted the charity shops in Hampstead, she got some great designer gear for a song. I sold a load of things years ago at a car boot sale, toys and childrens' clothes - got enough to buy my son the Gameboy he wanted so much.

We have had a policy of buying something small for the grown ups as a token for £10ish, ....now up to about£15 .....for quite a few years or we put a request out for money towards a particular item we would like.
I have put in a request for help to attend a glass blowing session which may mean Christmas and birthday present but I prefer it to getting bits and pieces however well intended and get to do things which I could not afford to do just on my own.

One of the smartest dressed women I know surprised me when she said she gets many of her clothes from charity shops.
Working with a large team can be difficult at Christmas so we agreed several years ago only to send each other cards but as Team Leader I buy them a communal present from a charity such as Oxfam or Save the Children.
Over the years it has been a goat, a donkey, a cow and a flock of chickens

I've just finished wrapping my family's christmas presents to take to them in the car this week (as I will be using public transport when I visit at Christmas); every single one cost under £5 and were bought from a variety of charity shops. Some of them are unused and not only does it help the charities, but it has given me a huge amount of pleasure to ferret around the shops matching suitable gifts to each person and I know they are all doing the same for each other. We all get far too much - the world goes crazy and I feel I am doing my bit by not parting with £££ for over priced gifts in the commercial world

Hooray - At last I have found like minded souls. Charity shops are the source of the most wonderful clothes and gifts - I have been an ardent shopper for both for years. They can provide hours of retail therapy with none of the usual guilt!

My grandmother had a drawer where she kept her unwanted birthday and C presents. These were then 'recycled' to other people. Each had a label saying who it was from so she didn't give anyone their own present back again.