Frugal Christmas: Budget gifts for kids

by Chiara Cavaglieri on 14 December 2011  |  0 comments
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Today’s frugal highlights include half-price puzzles, a Doctor Who annual for £2.99, an Annoying Monster for £8.99, a wooden doll’s house for £9.99, a 1,000 piece set of Mega Bloks for £14.99 and stocking fillers from 25p at Hawkin’s Bazaar!

Tops toys and games under £5

My top choice for cheap as chips stocking fillers for kids would be Hawkin’s Bazaar where prices start from just 25p for little flower rings. I also saw a novelty party bag camera for 50p, a wooden charm bracelet for £1, glow bracelets and sticky eyes for £1.50, fun office erasers for £2 and a keyring notebook for £2.25.

You can also buy a jumbo skipping rope for £1.99 and Ben 10 Alien Force 2 in 1 100 Piece Puzzle for only £1.84 at Argos.

This week you can also save 50% on various puzzle toys at M&S including Thomas & Friends, Chugginton and Winnie the Pooh (now only £3 each), or Castle Battle, All Aboard the Bus and Farmyard puzzle toys (now £4 each). There are some books on offer too – get the First Readers version of Cinderella and The Ugly Duckling for a mere £1.50 (was £3). 

Amazon best buys for kids

Amazon is brilliant for just about all your shopping and is pretty difficult to beat on price for popular toys and games. For puzzles this Ravensburger Octonauts set of three in a box is £5.95 and this Disney Princess set of set of four in a box is £5.99.

You can save over £8 on this Transformers 3 Optimus Prime cyber blaster where it’s been reduced to £16.20 (RRP £24.99).

It’s also a winner for books of course. Best buys include the hardback Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever Book 6 by Jeff Kinney for £5.99 (RRP £12.99), the Beano Annual 2012 for £4 (RRP £7.99), the Doctor Who Annual 2012 for only £2.99 (RRP £7.99) and the stunning War Horse by Michael Morpurgo for £3.47 (RRP £6.99).

Note the last chance for free delivery at Amazon is Sunday 18th December.

Half-price toys

I came across the brilliant Annoying Monsters which giggle, repeat and scream (if you’re buying for a friend’s child they may not thank you). I found Irritating Ethel for £8.99 (RRP £19.99) on Findmeagift but you need to spend £30 for free delivery so if you don’t want to buy anything else head to Play where it costs £9.29.

Argos has made some big price cuts too. For girls, I saw this Chad Valley wooden dollshouse for £9.99 (RRP £19.99), the I Love Ponies Blossom Hill Riding School for £19.99 (RRP £39.99) and Chad Valley Fantasy Castle for £24.99 (RRP £49.99). And for boys, grab this Mega Blok Micro Tub of 1,000 pieces which is actually less than half-price at £14.99 (RRP £34.99).

Don’t forget about Woolworths this Christmas – yes it has sadly disappeared from our high streets, but you can still buy items online and the Woolies bargain price tags still apply. There are several half-price toys up for grabs right now including this pottery painting set (reduced to £6) which is also in a BOGOF deal so you could get if for free with one of these games! It’s also 3 for 2 on other items such as this Micro Pets i Singing Pet (reduced from £10 to £5), this ZhuZhu toy (has £2 off, now £6) and the Little Tikes Piggy Bank (half price at £6).  

Something special

If you want to buy something extra special for a baby this Christmas the award-winning Ewan the dream sheep (Baby Gift of the Year 2011) is so sweet and makes soothing sounds (including rain, harp and the womb sequence) at a low base frequency with a calming pink glow to help little ones settle into a peaceful sleep. They cost £25.70 (RRP £29.99) on Amazon.

Or if you want to buy some clothing as a present, Frugi sells beautiful organic cotton clothes and you can pay £3.50 for a beautiful gift box to make it extra special. The prices can be steep but if you use the code EMMA you get £10 off all full-price orders with no minimum spend!