Mini pod: Is now the time to ban unnecessary Christmas presents? With 100 days to go, Martin’s top tips to ease costs & stress

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1:03Martin Lewis:Right across the year, there are many banks that will pay you to switch to them. This is a perfect time to grab the free bank switching cash. Sometimes the best gift may be releasing someone from the obligation of having to buy for you. Would I suggest people agree a no unnecessary present pack? Bah! Humbug. Hello and ho ho ho. I'm Martin Lewis and this is the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our big topic episode where each week we lead on one main subject to help you save. Now, normally it comes from my BBC Radio 5 live show with Adrian Childs, but not today.

1:40Oh, no. This is a pod only pre-Christmas preparation special. A host of things that if you do them now should save you cost and more importantly, stress on the big day. in this podcast a free 240 pounds in time for christmas just by switching bank then there are

2:01Martin Lewis:a host of toy sales on right now the early ones but often the best time to buy in time for christmas then the big one is this the time for you to ban unnecessary christmas presents let's decommercialize christmas and bring it back to what it's meant to be we'll move on then to how to play basketball off. No, it's not a game for Christmas Day. It's a way you can manipulate online stores to get them to give you a discount voucher. I also want to talk you through why you should beware of gift cards and vouchers. And there's lots lots more. Play the theme tune. Whoa there. This is about early preparation not early celebration.

2:40Nobody needs jingle bells in September. Play the normal theme tune.

2:48So I'm going to work hard, hard, hard, never, never I got a mouth, I got a feet So I'm going to make sure everybody eats

2:59Martin Lewis:Hello and welcome to this week's podcast and it's pod only this time but I'm joined by podcast producer Matt. Hello Matt. Hello. Now Matt is fresh from the Question Time podcast. How was your commute from Question Time podcast over to the Big Issues podcast? Long and arduous. Yes, I mean, sat in the same studio, we're recording one after the other. So it should all be fine. And we're going to be talking Christmas today. Are you a big Christmas doer? Where's Christmas? Because you don't have kids, so it's always slightly different from people who don't have kids. Where are you? Is it a big time of the year for you or is it just a day?

3:33Christmas Day itself, yes. I don't like the run-up to Christmas. I don't like winter. It's too cold. It's too grey. It gets dark too quickly. But Christmas is a nice bit of celebration, seeing family. So I like Christmas Day and I like Boxing Day.

3:46Martin Lewis:Yeah, so, I mean, glad we got you here, because I should always say at this point, I'm a Hanukkah man, not a Christmas man. I don't really do Christmas, but we do Hanukkah, and a lot of the rules are very similar for that, and it comes at a similar time of the year, though Hanukkah is on the lunar calendar, so it moves each year. It's normally sometime between mid-December and sort of mid-January, and often can be around the Christmas time, and it's a similar jolly winter festival. So, look, the aim today, as I've already mentioned, This is about early preparation, not early celebration. So for those who do celebrate Christmas and other festivals, it is always a significant financial event.

4:22Martin Lewis:And that means it needs planning and preparation rather than a last minute grab and dash, which only tends to lead to sort of extra expenditure and extra stress. So what I want to do today, I've got a list of Christmas preparation tips I want to go through. Some practical, some a little bit more philosophical and perhaps controversial. and we'll get to those when we get to them. I'll probably title the pod on that because then more people will probably listen when they listen to the controversial bits, but lots of practicals too. And to do this nice and smoothly as it's pod only, I've given you a list.

4:53Martin Lewis:Do you have the list? I can see the list. Because you're here, Matt. I'm here. And I don't want you to get all over excited about this role that you've got today. Bullet points are very important. Without a bullet point, you wouldn't have a story. Without a bullet point, nothing would come forward. So you're going to give me a subject and then I'm going to riff on that subject like we were some time of financial jazz programme. How exciting. There we go. So what is your first bullet point, Matt? My first bullet point is on free cash from bank switching. Yeah. So the reason for doing this right now is right across the year, there are many banks that will pay you to switch to them.

5:28Martin Lewis:They are effectively legal bribes for new customers to come in and move their bank account. So if you love your existing bank account, you might not want to do this. But if your bank account isn't special and you don't like it, then absolutely, this is a perfect time to grab the free bank switching cash. And it really isn't a big deal switching bank account. Most people tell me it's easy and hassle free. You do have to pass a not too harsh credit check. It's not as harsh as a credit card credit check normally. And you must use what they call the seven working day switch service of the new bank.

6:01Now, seven working days is in practice about 10 days. What this does closes your old bank account for you.

6:06Martin Lewis:moves over your balance so any money in it is automatically moved over, moves over your standing orders, moves over your direct debits, all this is done for you and any payments made to the old bank account are automatically forwarded to the new one. Though you would want to tell people your new bank account details but this just means you've got time to do it because the money wouldn't be lost. You know if they pay you you'll still get it. There are loads of them at the moment. I'm going to give you a bit more detail of the few top payers and then just run quickly through the others. Now, even then, because it makes very boring podcasting, I'm not going to dot every I and cross every T.

6:39You do need to look up the full eligibility criteria. Normally, you need to move a couple of direct debits across and stuff to qualify. But let's just try and run through a few. And I'll tell you, when I give you a payment date, that is, if you fulfilled all the criteria as quickly as possible today, on the day we're putting the podcast out, which is a Friday, the date that you would be paid by. Here goes. So the biggest payer of free cash at the moment is the Santander Every Day that's giving you£240. To qualify it, you need to pay in a total of£1 ,500 within 60 days. That literally means you have that amount going in.

7:13Now, if you put£100 in, you could take£100 out and you could put more money in.

7:17Martin Lewis:It's just the money going in that counts and you also have to fund its linked 8 % regular savings account with over£200. Again, that can be withdrawn. Do all that and the quickest you could have the cash paid if you did it today would be the 17th of December. Next top, and they're all for newbies remember, so if you've got one of these you can move to a different one, HSBC is giving you£220 for free and you need to pay in a total of£2 ,000. Again you can do that in bits and bobs and put£500 on its debit card. Do that, the cash could be paid by the 24th of November. First Direct, which is a good all-rounder account.

7:55It gives you£210 for free. It's top rated for service. It's got a 7 % link regular savings account.

8:00Martin Lewis:Most people get a 200%, 0 % overdraft. It's got a top overseas debit card. To qualify for that, you just need to pay in a total of£1 ,000. Again, you can do it in bits and bobs and make five or more debit card payments and log into its online banking. Then you could get the cash paid by the 20th of October. And then you've got a new account from Club Lloyds, which is a free£200. And it also gives you 12 months. Disney Plus has got some of the good perks too. That is a minimum payment of£2 ,000 a month. You could get that by the 8th of October. You've got NatWest Reward, which is£200 that could be paid by the 25th of October.

8:35You've got Nationwide Flex Direct, which is£175 that could be paid by the 5th of October. And if you earn over£100 ,000 a year, then you've got a couple more out there.

8:46Martin Lewis:HSBC Premier that'll give you£500 and NatWest Premier Rewards that will give you£500 too. Go and look all those up if they sound interesting to you. But the big message from me at the moment, ho, ho, ho, free cash to boost your coffers for Christmas just by changing your bank. Who could say no to that? Well, loads of people who like their existing bank, but it's just an idea that you might want to do it. What's your next bullet point? Next one, toy sales are now on. Yeah, people often think it's quite funny that we're in September at the moment and toy sales are on. These are the early Christmas sales that money savers tend to go for.

9:22So those people who know what they want to buy their children, this is a good time to go and stock up on those toys. You've got Argos is up to 50 % off. Now, we did 10 random items on this to see how good the sale is, because when they say up to 50%, what does that mean? I mean, it could be 1 % is up to 50%. So 10 items picked at random had an average discount of 29%. Asda also has an up to 50 % off and random items there were 30 % cheaper and Tesco larger stores has a 50 % off that ends on Sunday the 1st of November. So if you shop in any of those places and you're looking to buy toys, this isn't a bad time to do it.

9:59Next bullet. Next bullet. Apparently you say there's still time to spread the cost to ease the pain. Yeah, so we're starting to get into... Look, the problem with Christmas is it's a typical cost of £700 for people. And if you don't plan, that has to come from December's income. Now, that's quite hefty. I mean, most people wouldn't do that on the summer holiday. They would have money put aside to pay for the summer holiday, and Christmas is akin to that.

10:23Martin Lewis:So if you haven't put any aside yet, you could transqueeze a quarter of what's needed from your September pay, your October pay, and your November pay too. Then coupled with the December pay, you have the money. You can put it into top savings like spring is paying five percent and up to five thousand pounds or kahoot is paying five percent and up to three thousand pounds in the meantime so you gain a little interest but it's less really about the interest you gain it's more that what you don't want to do is be paying each month after christmas for what you've spent and having to pay interest on top far better to pay each month before christmas and get them to give you interest on top so it's just a little call if you are going to be spending at christmas christmas debt is a nightmare leads to a huge financial hangover.

11:07If you haven't thought about it yet and it's too much to pay out of December's income, start putting money aside now if you possibly can. OK, and what is on the list that you've got in front of you? I mean, I know, but otherwise it'd just be me talking the whole way through. Is it time to ban unnecessary Christmas presents? Yes. So this is the big one.

11:25Martin Lewis:And it's really important that we're doing it at this time of year. Now, years ago, 15 years ago, when I first wrote about this, I was really nervous and expecting a backlash. Instead, the response was from relieved people who feel that on the back of this, this isn't about a law to ban unnecessary Christmas presents. This is about talking to your wider group of friends and family and saying, hey, shall we just chill it a little bit this year? The response I got from people was that they get more time, more space, more enjoyment. Some people have got in touch with me to say it's reinvigorated Christmas for them because it brings them closer to what Christmas is about.

12:03Now, let's be very plain from the start. We're not talking about gifts from parents and grandparents for children or for close family. This is about that ever-widening circle of friends, colleagues and relatives

12:15Martin Lewis:that we feel we need to buy for. And my big message here is sometimes the best gift may be releasing someone from the obligation of having to buy for you. And that's why now is the right moment. Because if you leave it too late and someone's already bought for you, it's gone and you can't really do this. So doing this now in September, before we started to get into the main shopping period for most people for Christmas gifts, is absolutely important. And there is a big, long philosophy behind this. Christmas gift giving doesn't follow anthropologically the reason that we traditionally did gift giving.

12:55Martin Lewis:I mean we simply swap presents and we feel an obligation to reciprocate. Now the reason gift giving started in ancient societies was it was a form of social banking. So if you think about it like this, when you would go to a wedding, older more affluent members of the community would give gifts to younger members of the community to help them start off their life. And then as those younger members of the community age they would become the older more affluent people and they would give it to the new group of younger people. And you can see what I mean by social banking. But at Christmas, it's a zero-sum game.

13:29Martin Lewis:There's no net movement of money or goods. And the crucial thing here is this can result in misprioritising somebody's spending. So let's take it this way, Matt. If I gave you, and we're mates, as opposed to the relationship that we have at the moment, which we are friends, but, you know, we're colleagues. Yes. If I gave you a£40 scarf, what would you feel you needed to do? Return a£40 gift. to you exactly yeah exactly and without even the bonnet points you did that so much like i'm good at my job yeah so you would have to buy back something of similar value that's what the social convention is and while that's fine if both people can afford it and they've got the time if you're feeling i'm going to be generous and to give to somebody who's struggling they will still feel that need to reciprocate to you and that could effectively mean they're spending£40 on the gift you gave them, so£40 on that scarf, and whereas they might have preferred to spend£40 on feeding their children or paying the bills than giving that gift to you.

14:30So when many people talk to me about what about the gift of giving, this is why I go back to that phrase, sometimes the greatest gift is releasing someone from the obligation of having to buy for you. And we add to that that this tit-for-tat nature of giving means far too many people end up with tat. You know, unwanted, unused gifts. I don't want to stop the festive fun, but when people are just buying things for the sake of it, misprioritising other people's financing and ending up with a load of crap that just needs to end up in the landfill, it isn't good for anybody. So this is why, this is the point of the year when I suggest people agree a no unnecessary present pact, a pre-Christmas nup, a pre-nup.

15:13No unnecessary present pact. No? Okay, thanks, Matt.

15:17Martin Lewis:no unnecessary present pact with your wider group of friends or family. Most people tell me they broach it and they're scared to do so, but then there is a collective sigh of relief when they talk about it. If a no unnecessary present pact is too hardcore, Secret Santa will work with a spending limit, agree to spend time together to make gifts instead, or to give money to charity. All of that works. And I just think this is the time of year, especially when many people are facing pressure at the moment that we need to be a little bit thoughtful a little bit of step back on this and a little bit of saying how wide am I going to spread the net of Christmas giving and remember you can't unilaterally decide to reduce your Christmas giving because other people will give back to you which is why it's a good thing to talk about right now I'm very happy for you to blame me I'm very happy for you to open the conversation say I was listening to Martin Lewis talk about this what do you think about it and if they go, oh, terrible idea.

16:13Martin Lewis:And he's an absolute, right, that's fine. I don't mind. But if that helps you open the conversation. And if you've had this conversation with your family and friends about not giving unnecessary gifts, we'd love to hear from you. Send us your stories. Martin Lewis podcast at bbc.co.uk. And a final note for those who have young children. I did an experiment. Oh, gosh, this has got to be also about 15 years ago. We went into a primary school with some, I think they were year one children, so about five or six. And we gave them boxes that were wrapped up. And I said to them beforehand, I want you to know there really aren't any presents inside these boxes.

16:55And they all looked and I said, but if you want to open them, you can open them. And they were like, please can we open them? I said, are you sure you want to open them? There's no, please can we open them? And so we gave them these boxes, these big, big wrap boxes and the kids were so excited and they opened the boxes and they were so excited even though there was nothing in them and then they turned the boxes into tunnels and things to jump on and things to mess around and they played with each other and they were playing with a huge

17:20Martin Lewis:level of excitement for 50 minutes with just big empty cardboard boxes now that is not me saying that you should give your young children an empty cardboard box for Christmas what it is though is young children especially, they're not retail snobs. They don't judge your present by the cost. We as adults psychologically judge how much we're giving them by how much we had to pay for it. But while you have very young children, try and step away from that. You don't have to spend a fortune on that. Once they're teenagers, they're going to be demanding brands and other things, and you are going to have to spend more money if you've got it.

18:00Martin Lewis:If you don't, don't let Christmas you're in your new year but i just think while they're young take a step back stop thinking and i've heard so many people say this i can't get them that because it only costs five pounds or ten pounds that isn't enough they don't think like that when they're young and nor should you right right next one i hopefully got something a little bit a little bit less philosophical and more practical yeah what's basket bluff okay it's not a game that you play on christmas day okay So this is about a nice sneaky trick to get yourself a bargain. I've talked about it before, but it does work really well, especially at this time of year.

18:35Martin Lewis:So what Basket Bluff is about is if there's something that you want from a retailer, an online retailer where you've got an account, you've got to have an account set up, especially because you've got time at this time of year if you're buying something for Christmas or over the next couple of months, go and put your shopping in the basket online and then don't do anything. Do not complete. You give them conniptions. The retailers are sitting there going, what's happened? Why isn't this person transacting? I thought they were going to buy. And you'd be staggered at the amount of times that within a couple of days, they send you a discount for that shopping basket.

19:11Martin Lewis:Do you see what I mean? So, you know, whether I've got a list in front of me of places people have reported it's been done. Argos, Asda, Bowdoin, Cotton Traders, Deliveroo, E-Bookers, Evans, Lloyd's Pharmacy, Morrison, Zocado, Princess Cruises, Sainsbury's, Shark, Tesco Groceries, Very, Virgin Media, Virgin Wines, Waitrose, Dorothy Perkins, Emma Bridgewater, Furniture Village, JD Sports, Next, and a whole lot more. ASOS, Boohoo Man, Boo Avenue, Brand Alley, Buy Your Gift. I could keep going on. So let me just give you a few case studies of people who've got in touch with me. Kate got in touch with me on X.