Tis the season to be frugal

Christmas shopping can be a stressful experience for impoverished students, but this last minute gift guide will help ease the financial burden.

They say Christmas is the season to be jolly, but if you’re an impoverished student you may be a bit light on the old festive cheer right now. And who could blame you? This is an expensive time of the year and, with your last student loan instalment now a distant memory, funding the festivities can be a bit of a headache.

But worry ye not dear students because Condor Properties have some tidings of comfort and joy in the form of this thrifty gift guide, which will help you create maximum impact presents with minimum expense:

Get creative

Release your inner Neil Buchanan with a homemade gift this Christmas. Done well they can induce reactions that money can’t buy – tears are sometimes possible with DIY presents, which is a right result if you have only spent £2.50 making it. But done badly those tears could be out of sheer disappointment, so you need to tread carefully and operate within the boundaries of your talents.

A nostalgic family photograph in a nice frame is a fool proof gift that goes down particularly well with elderly relatives (there’s always room for a family snap on the mantelpiece).

If you’re feeling particularly artistic you could always write a poem or paint a picture, which will earn you more kudos than something boring from Boots. And because you made it with your own hands, the recipient has to like it. Or at least pretend to.

Subscribe to Netflix

Providing someone with unfettered access to film and television is the gift that keeps on giving. Granted Netflix and LoveFilm subscriptions won’t give the recipient much to unwrap at Christmas, but they can open up a world of brilliant entertainment and will only cost you about a fiver upfront.

That fiver will, of course, have to be paid monthly for as long as you want the subscription to last (a year is probably reasonable). However – and here’s the brilliant bit – you can also benefit from the service because both Netflix and LoveFilm can be accessed across multiple devices. So in effect, it’s a gift to yourself.

Magazine subscriptions

A perennial favourite, from as little as £19 you can buy someone an annual print or digital subscription to distinguished titles such as National Geographic, GQ and Vogue. The subscription mavens www.magazine.co.uk offer a gamut of titles and some huge discounts in the run up to Christmas.

Sweet charity

Books are always a winner at Christmas and charity shops are an Aladdin’s Cave of literature. Paperbacks go for as little as 50p in some stores, which also sell cheap wrapping paper, seasonal cards and miscellaneous knickknacks incorporating anything from discount antiques to tasteless tat. Aside from picking up a bargain, the best thing about Christmas shopping in charity shops is that you are supporting a worthy cause and recycling other people’s unwanted items.