Have a stress free Christmas! (familyhampers.co.uk)

Member Name: Mels

Product:	familyhampers.co.uk
Date:	22/10/00 (391 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy way to save for Christmas, you don't notice the money being paid, good comission

Disadvantages: none

Last Christmas I was stressed, and totally unorganised. I had a young baby and didn’t buy things in advance like I normally do. Instead I relied on a credit card to see us through. It also didn’t help matters that my husband wrote the car off, and we had to fork out the excess, and also find other means of transport.

After Christmas we were left with a big credit card bill that took a good few months to pay off, never again! This year we decided to get organised early so that we didn’t get into the same mess as last year.

I decided to become an agent for Family Hampers as I thought that it would be much easier to spread the cost of Christmas throughout the year. I ordered gift vouchers and a booze hamper, and a few of my friends and relatives also ordered hampers, and gift vouchers. I didn’t ask many people as I thought it would be difficult to keep track of the money etc.

THE BROCHURE

The brochure is packed full of various hampers from a full Christmas selection, frozen food, tinned essentials, chocolate, booze, fresh meat to ready meals. They also do various toys, and gifts, Easter Eggs, perfume, jewellery and gift vouchers.

The gift vouchers selection is very good and cover a variety of shops like Argos, Arcadia Group, Choice, Kingfisher and Debenhams from as little as 23p per week.

All you have to do is choose what you would like to order and work out how much it will cost per week and then complete an order form.

RUNNING THE AGENCY

I found running the agency very simple to do as everything that you need to run it is sent to you with instructions. For each client you give them a payment record card, which you complete and sign each time they pay you some money. You have an Agents record card with all your clients’ names on, and you just complete this every time someone pays. At a glance you can see exactly how much everyone has paid, and how much is le
ft to pay.

Every four weeks you have to pay all your clients’ money to Family Hampers. There are various ways to pay, and if you pay by direct debit they give you £5.00 worth of Premier Points to spend at Argos. However, I personally wanted to pay by cheque, to make sure that I had collected everyone’s money.

Family Hampers then send you a statement every 4 weeks with your outstanding balance. There are incentives each month for paying on time such as 15% off Fads; kids eat free at various places, £60 off a weekend break. So far all my clients have paid on time and I haven’t had any problems.

Once all the money has been paid in (the deadline is 3rd November) you will receive your commission (up to 25%) and other incentives. The gift vouchers will be sent out during November, so in plenty of time before Christmas. The hampers will arrive at the end of November and during December. I will update on the quality etc when all the hampers arrive.

OVERALL

I would definitely recommend anyone to either become an agent, or ordering from a hamper company, as I have found it really easy to save for Christmas, as I haven’t missed the money as it is paid weekly.

I am definitely more relaxed this year knowing that all my gifts are all paid for in advance, and I won’t need to rely on a credit card at all this year. I can now sit back and enjoy it knowing that I haven’t got into debt!

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