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Christmas is just two more days away! Your Christmas shopping should be all done and the presents all wrapped ready under the Christmas tree for Santa’s arrival!

This Christmas has been slightly different with the economic gloom and uncertainty enveloping the world. Retailers all over have reported drops in their sales as consumers try to cut back spending in anticipation of an uncertain year ahead. However, cutting back on expenses does not necessarily mean a Scrooge Christmas as you can still have a wonderful budget Christmas this year. Just read below for some great money tips for an inexpensive Christmas without scrimping on the fun!

Have A Potluck Party

Instead of eating out this Christmas in an overpriced restaurant that features pre-cooked set meals, why not organise a pot luck Christmas party with your friends and family? It will help reduce food costs for one family and cleaning up will be easier with many hands to help.

Roast Chicken Not Turkey

Turkey is usually expensive and can come up to over RM100 for a frozen bird. Turkey meat also tends to be rougher due to its size and frozen turkey tends to be lacking in taste even after roasting. In addition,  roast turkey often means lots of leftovers! So, avoid all these turkey headache this Christmas and roast chicken instead for a cheaper and more delicious Christmas dinner.

Read on for more tips below.

Do Not Indulge In Excesses

Festivals are often a time of excesses and it is only too easy to fall into the trap of buying more presents and more food for Christmas dinner. However, when shopping, take a while to stop and think if that additional gift, log cake or cookies are absolutely necessary. Chances are, it wouldn’t be missed amidst all the Christmas festivities!

Bake Your Own

Instead of buying commercially baked Christmas cookies, take some time off to bake your own cookies for a healthier, cheaper and more delicious alternative! You can get your children involved in frosting the cookies too. Plus, they make wonderful and delicious Christmas presents!

Do not let the economic downturn or recession spoil your Christmas fun but learn to work around it. With some planning and creativity, you can look forward to an inexpensive but enjoyable Christmas this year with your loved ones which is ultimately what Christmas is all about!

Have a wonderful Christmas and remember it isn’t about how much you earn but how much you can save!

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I hope you found the Christmas saving tips useful in helping you save on your Christmas packaging this year. It is not only cost friendly but great in helping you have an environmentally friendly Christmas!

Pretty gift tags usually sell for more than RM1.50 in the stores and often, they tend to be thrown away with the packaging. With some creativity and imagination, you can make your own for a fraction of the cost and create a lovely personalised tag for your gift recipient. So if you enjoy craft or would like to save some money this coming Christmas, why not try making your own gift tags for a change with these tips below.

Recycled Christmas Cards

Christmas cards are often bright and cheery with lots of cute Christmas pictures which make fantastic gift tags as they are often made of hard material!

Learn some tips on how to make cheap and personalised Christmas gift tags below.

Simply save your Christmas cards and cut them up the following year, thread a pretty ribbon or some coloured thread through and voila, lovely gift tags at almost no cost to adorn your Christmas gifts!

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Used Tickets

The next time you go for a movie or for a theatre show, don’t throw away your tickets because they make great gift tags, especially if your recipients are movie or theatre buffs! Make them a present of a musical or production you know they would enjoy and stick on this unique gift tag for a wonderful gift idea.

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Alternatively, keep your train tickets as the hard material they come in make great tags. Simply punch a hole and use your creativity to decorate them!

Recycle Reading Material

If you are clearing out your house and are about to get rid of any old reading material, stop for a minute as you can consider using them too to pretty up your Christmas gifts.

A good tip is to use thicker or brightly coloured books such as old children books to add a splash of colours to your gifts!

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Button Up Tags

Buttons are cheap but can jazz up a Christmas gift tag so easily! Simply stick some pretty buttons or sew them onto hard and colourful cardboard cutouts for a lovely personalised Christmas gift tag!

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Your children would love getting their hands dirty in making little gift tags for their presents and it is a great way to bring the family together. So, this Christmas, put on your creativity hats and try your hand at something different towards an environmentally friendly Christmas whilst saving money!

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To combat this wastage and to encourage people to do their bit in saving the environment, a new and interesting way of recycling your garbage has been introduced in the form of garbage enzymes. The enzymes have been proven to be powerfully effective as a natural and organic floor cleaner, household cleaning liquid, laundry washing, cleaning cars and amazingly drive away insects! Some have even claimed it to be effective in removing pimples from your face! Add all these great benefits up and you are looking at big savings from buying harsh chemical cleaning agents for your household.

Making your own garbage enzymes are easy and it can be done in the comfort of your home with the rubbish that you usually throw away. Learn how you can do this easily after the jump!

1. Start with some kitchen waste.

Only fruit and vegetable waste is recommended. Adding protein or dairy would cause it to really smell!

2. Add some black/brown sugar

3. Ensure the correct proportions

Don’t forget to stir the mixture every now and then to ensure that sufficient air gets in for the fermentation process.

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The longer you store it, the stronger it’ll be and once done, you can use it for all the following uses with the right dilution:

• Cleaning liquid for your floor
• To keep insects away
• Dish-washing liquid
• Car wash liquid
• Laundry washing liquid
• Clean up your drains and rivers

It is the ultimate organic cleaning agent and is totally chemical free so is safe for everyone in the family to use.

So, save money on cleaning agents whilst doing your bit for the environment!

I have attached the article from The Star below:

Committed to leaving the smallest footprint possible, one woman is waging war on global warming.

While a lot of tree-huggers take themselves way too seriously, Dr (H) Joean Oon carries her social conscience without being smug.

Going beyond screwing in compact fluorescent light bulbs and carrying tote bags to the grocers, the homeopathy and naturopathy doctor is tirelessly working towards bringing environmental awareness to the masses by giving free public talks . . . on garbage enzyme.

Environmental issues are important to Oon because she worries for the future generation.

“I was devastated when I found out that Malaysia was on the brink of sinking due to global warming,” says Oon at her Naturopathic Family Care Centre cum garbage enzyme headquarters in Tanjung Bungah, Penang.

“My biggest concern was for the safety of my three daughters, and I knew I had to do something, anything, to save them. That was what drove me to learn about producing garbage enzyme from Dr Rosukon Poompanvong, an alternative medicine practitioner in Thailand,” she recalls.

So how does trimming trash help to bring down the earth’s temperature?

“The production of garbage enzyme generates ground-level Ozone (O3). The O3 helps to maintain the earth’s temperature by releasing the heat trapped by the heavy metal in the clouds. If every household turns its garbage into enzyme, we can protect our ozone, live in a smog-free environment and eat food free from toxins,” explains Oon.

By mixing garbage enzyme with chemical cleaning products, Oon explains, the enzyme flowing into our drainage system will cleanse the rivers and oceans.

“We are running a campaign to encourage Malaysians to pour garbage enzyme into our rivers this Dec 21,” says Oon,

“The enzyme will help to break down the harmful chemicals. We have done a trial run at Sungai Kayu Ara in Selangor and the results have been encouraging.”

Oon works with 10 dedicated staff to produce the enzyme and to publish booklets. She and her team have gone on garbage enzyme road shows all across Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia and India.

“To date, we have given away 15,000 bottles for free because we want to encourage people to try it and eventually make their own,” she says.

Funds for the project, according to Oon, have never fallen short.

“Thanks to the public’s generosity, we have not been short of brown sugar and plastic bottles to keep the project running,” she says.

The new black

So how practical — and useful — is this enzyme?

I don’t pick up litter in the midst of a shopping excursion, I don’t turn off the tap when I brush my teeth and I sure don’t wait until it mellows before I flush, but Oon’s suggestion to reroute one third of my household waste away from the landfill by making my own enzyme seems do-able.

While Oon attends to a patient, a staff member, Peter Too, 31, takes me to the porch for a garbage enzyme show-and-tell.

“Glass expands, so it’s better to use plastic containers to store the enzyme,” Too says, as he twists the lid off an air-tight plastic drum, releasing a whiff of fermenting fruits and vegetables. The smell was a cross between apple cider vinegar and orange juice past its shelf life.

“To make the enzyme all you need is one part brown sugar, three parts kitchen waste and 10 parts water. First, mix brown sugar with water. Then add in the garbage — watermelon rinds, orange peels, carrot shavings, tea leaves, apple cores, banana peels and vegetables.

“You can also put in meat, dairy products and durian, but I have to warn you, it’s going to smell really bad. Remember to leave some space at the top of the container for the enzyme to breathe. Every now and then, give it a good stir so it gets enough air. In three months, your enzyme is good for use,” says Too.

One of the drums has some funky-looking mould floating at the top.

“It’s yeast, and it’s perfectly safe to use,” Too says, rubbing it between his fingers for good measure.

Another barrel is littered with fat fruit worms, alive and crawling.

“Worms develop when the container is not sealed properly. To dissolve them all, just add one extra ratio of sugar and make sure the lid is tight. The extra protein will be great fertiliser.”

The garbage enzyme, Too explains, will never expire.

“The longer you store it, the stronger it will become,” he says, sending me off with a bottle and dilution instructions to try out.

Putting it to the test

My poor tresses have been subjected to shampoos that claim to be natural but contain parabens, sodium laureth sulfate and some other stuff I can’t pronounce. The enzyme, I figure, is just what I need to disarm the chemicals.

I don’t want to mix the enzyme in a full bottle of shampoo so I get a trial-size bottle, add two tablespoons of enzyme and give it a good martini shake.

The shampoo smells good, but leaves a sticky residue after the first rinse. I give it a second rinse. It leaves my locks looking, well, pretty much the same as they always do. Since it works fine on my hair, I decide to use the enzyme on other surfaces.

There is some lime scale collecting at the bottom of my bathroom pail. I fill it a quarter full with water, and add a tablespoon of enzyme. The flaky white stuff comes off after a good rub with an old loofah.

On a roll, I get to work on some dishes that have been sitting overnight in the kitchen sink. With the sink plugged, I squeeze a generous amount of liquid suds, three tablespoons of enzyme and some water and let the dishes soak for awhile. The suds smell light and fresh.

Getting rid of the crusty scrambled eggs in the skillet takes a bit of elbow grease but it all comes off.

I am so thrilled, my eyes start darting around trying to find something else to clean.

The kitchen tiles are in need of polishing, I decide. Rolling my sleeves, I soak a rag in a bucket of water and enzyme. A lot of dirt comes off. The result isn’t exactly sparkling, but it’s better than spraying toxic cleaning products.

Trigger-happy, I drop a tablespoon of enzyme into a brand name glass cleaner and set to work on my mirrors. Seeing my grinning reflection in the stain-free mirror totally pumps me up, but I can’t help but roll my eyes when I notice I still have zits at 27.

I dab a bit of enzyme onto some zits along my hairline. It stings a bit, but next morning, the pimples seem to have shrunk a bit. This is magic.

Feeling pretty pleased, I prop my feet on the ottoman and snack on pesticide-free grapes that have been soaked for 45 minutes in a bowl of enzyme and water. Being a domestic goddess sure isn’t easy, but at least with garbage enzyme there’s no little voice nagging at your eco-conscience.

o Dr Joean Oon will be speaking on Earth Saving Through Garbage Enzyme at the Change Climate program to be held on Aug 9 in Stadium Putra Bukit Jalil. The entrance fee is RM5 (reedemable for purchase at theme kiosks). To know more visit www.justlifeshop.com/changeclimate.

You can read more about garbage enzymes at the following links:

O3Enzyme.com