Tesco Christmas gifts: best way to save money

Tesco is great for cheap Christmas presents: and not just during the Black Friday madness we saw last week. If you still have gifts to buy on a budget, then there are ten ways that the retailer could provide you with the bargains you need to celebrate Christmas for less.

1. Clubcard Boost
This is a brilliant way to get value out of your Clubcard points, but you'll need to be quick if you want to take advantage. You have until 14 December to swap your vouchers for the double the value in certain departments. You then have until 24 December in order to spend them.

The vouchers are valid in the Christmas department and on toys and bikes, Hudl2 tablets, clothing, electricals, health and beauty sets, phones, homeware, baby products, gaming and the opticians. Tesco Direct has a huge range of gift options, so, for example, this becomes by far the cheapest way to buy this years hottest toys and games. It also means you can get your hands on a tablet for a hugely competitive £64.50.

2. Dining vouchers
One way to make your Clubcard vouchers go further is by trading them for dining vouchers. This has to be done close to the day, and they'll need to use them quickly, but you can get four times the value of your Clubcard points, so can shower your friends with £20 to spend in restaurants including La Tasca, Prezzo, Strada and Zizzi for just £5.

3. Half price fancy wines
Tesco has a separate website selling wine by the case at big discounts. It also has a special bin ends collection, where you can buy a mixed case of 12 very nice wines for roughly half price. So for £84 you can sort 12 of your gifts at once.

4. Make a hamper of your own
The swankier grocers make up expensive hampers, but if you have an old box at home you can cover with Christmas paper, you can make your own for a tiny fraction of the price. You could stay traditional with a selection of festive favourites, or make up something quirkier to suit the person you are buying for, such as an 'afternoon tea hamper', a 'cocktails hamper', 'chocoholics hamper', or a 'morning after' hamper.

5. Check the website for special offers
Take your time to go through the website, because with so many items on sale it's not always easy to spot the deals at first glance. At the moment, for example, a bit of hunting will reveal that there are a number of beauty offers available, so you can get a third off a Lacoste Touch of Pink set - at £26 instead of £39, a third off a One Direction Our Moment gift set (at £14 instead of £21) and save a third on a Calvin Klein Euphoria gift set at £32 instead of £48.

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6. Scout eBay for Black Friday bargains
After the madness of Black Friday, there are a number of enthusiastic people who got home and realised that they didn't really need their purchases in the first place, so they have put them up for sale on eBay. Have a hunt online to see if they're selling any bargains you could use as Christmas gifts.

7. Try the bonkers Secret Santa app
Tesco has launched a very strange Twitter app, which suggests gifts for people when you enter their Twitter handle. It's not exactly foolproof. When you enter Katie Price's Twitter handle it suggests the Tooth Fairy game or a Mini Mouse fragrance set - when presumably Price has plenty of perfume of her own.
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8. Get something personalised
Tesco is running a range of discounts on its personalised photo gifts, so you can get 10% off purchases of over £15, 20% off purchases over £25 and 30% off gifts over £35.

9. Click and collect
The advent of click and collect means you can avoid the lottery of Christmas deliveries, and save you having to drive to an enormous Tesco extra store to do your shopping. You can get any of your gifts delivered to your local branch of Tesco, for the best of all worlds.

10. At the very least buy the wrap
Tesco is offering a decent saving of three for the price of two on all wrap, so it makes sense to stock up. However, it's the cheapest item you get free, so check that all the things you are buying are roughly the same cost - otherwise take them through the till in separate batches, so you don't end up getting just a few free gift tags.

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