PriceWatch: It may be almost Christmas, but don't expect charity from retailers - price differences on certain items can be vast, and big savings can be made by shopping around.
With Christmas Day fast approaching the costly search for festive cheer is well and truly underway.
From fake plastic trees to walking, talking plastic dinosaurs and from chart CDs to the finest of culinary delicacies, retailers are frantically pushing new products in an effort to part you from your money. But as the choices grow and consumers grow busier, there is often little opportunity to shop around for the best deals out there.
PriceWatch compared and contrasted a number of seasonal offerings that will be found in most households in the coming weeks - decorations and plum puddings - and found that enormous variations in price and quality exist. As ever, higher prices do not always mean higher quality.
With a budget of just €25 we went in search of decorations to supplement our Christmas tree and found that the cheaper outlets offered the best - and the most glittering - value by a long way.
It might be worth spending the extra few euro on your plum pudding, however. We tried versions from Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Aldi and Co Tipperary and found that the more you spend, the better it gets.
The traditional present options, such as CDs, books, games consoles and champagne all seem to be substantially more expensive in Ireland than overseas so if you have an opportunity to travel to the US or to Singapore in the next week or so you could make great savings.
For most of us, shopping online offers a more realistic alternative to high street prices, although time is fast running out on this option if you want to have your presents delivered before December 25th.
Even within the country savings can be made through judicious shopping around. When the price comparisons were carried out at the beginning of December, a Roboraptor, for instance, this year's must-have toy for young boys, was selling at just under €119 in one toy shop on Dublin's northside while virtually next door in a major department store the price tag jumped to €145.
Travel further afield to New York, however, and the price falls dramatically to just over €85.
