Don’t Overspend This Christmas

Posted by MoneyThinker in budget | 0 comments

I grew up in a home where generosity was a huge thing. It wasn’t odd to see hundreds of dollars worth of presents under the tree. But with this generosity came a lot of arguments; my stepdad would just roll his eyes at my mom, or my mom would argue with my disabled grandma. “You’ve spent too much!” They would max out credit cards, rip through savings, and do all kinds of other crazy things in order to give us the best holidays.

As I got older, I ended up having the same issue over the holidays. I would spend hundreds of dollars on my friends. Generosity is not a bad thing unless you realize that you can’t control your spending alongside it.  So, what are some things you can do to prevent overspending during the holidays?

1.       Always use cash. Always use cash when making purchases for the holidays. If you have to go so far as to use the envelope system, then do it. There’s a lot of temptation to buy a lot of things because they are on sale or whatever. It’s a lot better to have money allocated and physically there for you to keep track of instead of just swiping your debit card everywhere.

2.       Make a list, check it twice. Have that list ready! Make sure that you are ready to roll, possibly with exactly what you’re buying each person.  Or, go on a website like Amazon and make a wish list that you can budget accordingly. Either way, make sure you’re specific; we all have a tendency to overspend when we aren’t.

3.       Make a date. Instead of spending money, plan a get-together with a bunch of your friends or make a romantic dinner for you and your honey. Everyone understands that the economy isn’t doing the best, and the quality time definitely speaks volumes to people at times.

4.       Save ahead of time. Most banks have a Christmas club account of some sort available. These allow you to save money throughout the year for your Christmas shopping. Some have a set amount you have to put in a month; others allow you do to do so at your discretion. Then, you cannot touch the account without a fee until October or November (depending on your bank’s policy), when it’s placed in a specified account (savings or checking). Then you can take it out and use it for Christmas shopping. It’s a great idea, considering we tend to overspend past our budgets at the end of the year.

So, don’t overspend and overstress this season. Follow these tips throughout the year and you can have a great holiday season, with less budget breaking and more fun and enjoying family and friends.