Christmas: A Cracker of a Saving

What did Adam say to Eve on the day before Christmas?

It's Christmas Eve, Eve!

Christmastime can be tough for a student. The first student loan is almost gone, you can't move for shoppers on the high street and there's always that one person you know who has been singing Christmas songs since mid-October.

That person is me. 

I just can't help it - Christmas gives me some much-needed quality time with my family, my friends, and some really great food, and it's something I desperately wanted to recreate at university. But when I started totting up how much it would be to buy food, a tree, decorations and presents I was easily looking at a number in the hundreds, So I started thinking of ways to cut back the costs without sucking the joy out of christmas.

Oh Christmas Tree

Decorating the Christmas tree is one of my favourite childhood memories - I have my own personal decorations, gathered from when I was too small to understand what Christmas was, and decorating the tree marks the beginning of the Christmas period.

I desperately wanted a tree for our student house, but there were a couple of small problems - we didn't really have the space for one and to be honest, I didn't want to spend at least £50+ on a real tree. There are of course fake options like this one for less, but nothing really says Christmas like the smell of pine needles. With the price of baubles and tinsel and other tat added on, getting a Christmas tree was out of the question.

So instead we bought a small, wooden Christmas tree ornament from Tiger for £8, quite similar to these Christmas pegs, also from Tiger:

 Standing at around a foot tall with small bell-like ornaments, for me and my partner Dan it was a compromise between my obsession with a real Christmas tree and the realization we had no room and no money.

The Table
In the week before the end of term there is a tradition to hold a Christmas meal amongst flatmates and friends - and they can be expensive. In an effort to recreate the home comforts of a meal cooked by mum and dad, we tend to splash out on all the trimmings, which can stretch our already-tight bank balances. Christmas isn't Christmas without corny cracker jokes, and there are so many ways to to cut the costs.

W.H. Smith quite reguarly give out 20% discount vouchers, and coupled with their regular special offers and partnership with o2 Priority I managed to pick up a box of cards for free, and a box of 8 Christmas crackers for a brilliant £2.60 (originally £4.99, they were a third off, and then 20% off with the voucher).

I also picked up a huge pack of Christmassy napkins from a student favourite, Poundland, and a lovely little centrepiece from Primark for £1.50.

Presents Galore
Easily the most expensive part of the holidays, presents can rack up your holiday bill faster than you can count the receipts. So, as a way of demonstrating that you don't have to spend more than your yearly rent in one month, I challenged my partner Dan: 3 presents for £5, with discounts and points allowed, and it was easier than you'd think.

My first stop was Boots, where I've been collecting points on my Advantage card for months, to pick up something small - and came across these wonderful smelling Original Source shower gels for men. For 200 points I left with a bottle of the Black Mint shower gel, and I'd spent none of my £5.

My next stop was W.H. Smith, where I still had a 20% off voucher, and was immediately greeted with a huge stand full of £5 books. A Hairy Bikers Great Curries book was perfect for Dan, and with 20% off it came to only £4.

My final stop was Superdrug, to pick up a small box of Peanut M&M's - they're sold in a lot of shops with but 10% student discount it was 90p rather than £1, and I'd only spent £4.90 in total.

Yes, Christmas can be expensive, but that doesn't mean we have to miss out - for an £8 tree, £5.10 on table decorations and under £5 for presents I spend only £18. A budget Christmas is so doable and easy for students and non-students alike!

An Ice Cream Alternative

Sometimes being on a diet can be really tough - it's hard to say no when all you want to do is enjoy takeaway night or watch a film with ice cream and popcorn like everyone else.

Unfortunately binging on ice cream doesn't exactly fit with my whole healthy-eating ethos, not to mention they can be incredibly sugary and fatty - and I also discovered while doing research that some of my favourite brands actually contain gelatin, which is a big no no for a committed vegetarian.

The last few summers have led to an incredible rise in popularity in frozen yoghurt. Billed as the healthy ice cream alternative, it's been impossible not to notice them beckoning from inside the supermarkets' frozen chillers: even now, in the colder months. So, on a whim (and using a voucher or two), I bought some.

What I really wanted to do was a taste test, and a comparison of the number of calories and amount of fat to find an overall winner, so I enlisted the help of my boyfriend and lovely flatmates and settled in front of the tv to try them all.

Ben and Jerry's Greek Yoghurt Vanilla Honey Caramel

Calories - 220kcal
Fat - 8g
It was really hard to believe this wasn't ice cream - very sweet and smooth, and with almost overwhelming honey and caramel flavours. It was Dan's and my flatmate Emma's favourite of the 5 we tested, but having looked at the nutritional information I wasn't quite sold. Not only was it the highest of the five in calories, it also contained an abnormally high amount of your day's sugar allowance - over 25%! Yes it tasted great, but is only marginally better for you nutritionally than ice cream.
Overall - 2/5

Yoo Moo Frozen Yoghurt Strawberry Swirl

Calories - 148kcal
Fat - 1.3g
The bits of fruit on top was an unexpected bonus, and made this look like a cornetto - which really isn't a bad thing. Often with strawberry-flavoured things you find that they taste of this awful synthetic strawberry, which we really didn't get with this creamy strawberry yoghurt. However the whole point of choosing frozen yoghurt was to get away from the excessive additives in ice cream, and on a closer inspection of the ingredients I found a sugar content higher than that of a McDonald's apple pie! Not great.
Overall - 3/5

Lick Fat Free Frozen Yoghurt Banana and Honey

Calories - 108kcal
Fat - 0g
This really tasted of yoghurt. It doesn't even pretend to be an ice-cream, this was the very definition of a frozen banana yoghurt in taste. with the occasional swirl of honey. Unfortunately my flatmates aren't big fans of banana but I love the stuff, and I really enjoyed the flavour. My only issue is that the nutritional values weren't very easy to find when going back to do this review, and so am unsure of exactly how much sugar is in this. Calories and fat-wise though, this is incredibly low and one I wouldn't feel bad about eating.
Overall - 4/5

Snog Frozen Yoghurt Berry Blue Acai Burst

Calories - 130kcal
Fat - 3.5g
Although
This one unfortunately scored an immediate low ranking as it was impossible to get a straight answer on whether or not this was even vegetarian - the ingredients list mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, a particularly unhealthy type of fat that can sometimes be derived from animal fats. I did a lot of googling and actually e-mailed Snog but got no response. The flavour wasn't great either: an eclectic mix of sharp 'berry' flavours, but apparently with a very authentic acai taste too, although it definitely wasn't one of our favourites.
Overall - 1/5

Lick Fat Free Frozen Yoghurt Strawberry and Elderflower

Calories - 110kcal
Fat - 0g
Our last yoghurt dessert of the night was another Lick contender, this time in the unusual strawberry and elderflower - and it went down surprisingly well. Low in both calories and in fat, this was my favourite and my flatmates loved it too - again, as with the other Lick frozen yoghurt, I wasn't able to find the nutritional values online, but flavour-wise this was just brilliant and my personal favourite.
Overall - 5/5

The overall winner here was definitely Lick - more specifically, Lick Strawberry and Elderflower. Both Lick offerings we tried were leaps and bounds better nutritionally than the others we tried, and truly embodied the 'healthy alternative' title without any drop in taste. I will definitely be repurchasing!