BAH humbug. Christmas (and Chanukah and Eid) is coming, and millions will celebrate it as a retail festival. Call me Scrooge – and many do – but I’d love to ban the giving of unnecessary presents and I’ve been campaigning on it for years.

But if you do need to buy (or will do it regardless), here are top tips to at least keep costs down:

1. Buy stocking fillers to trick Amazon into giving you free delivery. The giant e-retailer gives you free delivery if you spend £20 on its goods. A new tool SuperSaverDelivery.co.uk scours Amazon for filler items.

For example, a £19.73 hairdryer comes with a £6.01 delivery charge so £25.74 total. But the tool shows how you can add a 29p keyring gets you over the £20 free delivery threshold, so you’d only pay £20.02, saving £5.72 and a keyring into the bargain.

2. Until Sunday, December 27, you can swap every £5 of Clubcard vouchers for £10 in various categories at Tesco, and most things in its Tesco Direct catalogue. Go to www.tesco.com/boost

3. Give time not money – give personal gift cheques. Whether it's a promise to babysit for pals on demand, lets your kids have a sleepover, or give your special someone a back-rub, these money-can’t-buy gifts are fantastic. For some gift cheques you can print for free, go to www.mse.me/xmascheques

4. Shopping on eBay? Wronglyspelled products attract fewer bids because many people miss them. Type a product into fatfingers.co.uk or baycrazy.com and they trawl eBay for all possible spelling mistakes.