I have been considering stopping sending real cards for a while now and giving the money to charity instead. There are many other ways of passing on your greetings without helping the card companies make an even bigger profits. How about a free online greetings card and a telephone message. Take a bit of time designing a nice card and the recipient will appreciate the thought put into it. Make sure that you mention you are giving money to charity instead and they won’t think you are just been a cheapskate! You can find some nice ones from Hallmark on the MSN eCards site, and they cover many different occasions. A few more of the popular site are Egreetings, Blue Mountain, E-Cards and 123 Greetings. There is often more choice than in the shops so you can probably find something appropriate to the person you are sending it to.

The other way of getting a free greetings card is to find a site with a free card promotion. For Valentines day, online card site Photobox are giving away completely free cards. They hope that by getting you to sign up for a free card you will come back and pay for cards in the future. If you do still want to send cards it is a really good site to use. They allow you to custom design a card, including adding your own photos. Most cards are about £3 plus postage so not exactly cheap but if you can’t resist sending real cards they are pretty impressive. Alternatively try Moonpig that offer the same service and have a big selection of cards. They regularly have offers on as well for free or heavily discounted cards.

If you are feeling particularly adventurous you could even try making your own cards. You can find packs on eBay that have all the materials you need to make the cards. Alternatively you can design them on your computer and print them out.

Image Source - superturtle