Don’t you hate scrambling to come up with the money you need for Christmas? It seems to make the holidays so stressful. If you charge your holiday celebrations and gifts to a credit card, you may be stressed for months afterward trying to pay it all off.
This year let’s do things differently. Let’s look at some tricks to start saving money now for Christmas.
Set a Goal
First things first. You need to decide how much you want to spend overall. You can then break down the numbers for each expense – gifts, food, etc. This will tell you exactly how much money you need to save. Look at the calendar and see how many pay periods you have until Christmas. This will tell you how much you need to put away each pay period.
Open a Separate Savings Account
It helps to have a separate savings account for Christmas expenses. Some banks even have accounts solely for that purpose. The good thing about these accounts is that you can’t draw the money out until a certain date. This forces you to not touch the money.
Rework Your Budget
To account for the money that you need to save for Christmas, you’ll need to rework your budget. You might reduce the amount you spend on entertainment, clothing, or another expense that isn’t a necessity.
Start Shopping Now
One of the best tricks is to start shopping now. You can come across so many great deals if you start now. Not only will you save on gifts, but you can save on the ingredients you’ll need for holiday baking as well. Also, spreading the spending out makes it much easier to swallow.
Cut the Extras (for Now)
Believe it or not, extras add up. While you’re saving for Christmas, take all the money that you would have spent on extras and put it into your savings account. For example, each time you pass up that expensive cup of coffee, put the money into savings.
You don’t have to stress at the holidays. Start saving for Christmas now so that you can actually enjoy the holidays. Shop for gifts on clearance or on sale starting now, put money into a Christmas savings account, and rework your budget to make it all work. You don’t have to charge everything on a credit card. Start saving now to make it happen!
James Heidebrecht says
Great ideas! We are starting our plan now too. Cutting out the needless extras is a big part of that. We accumulate so much "junk" over the holidays that we opted to streamline things. Hey for me it's all about family and friends and I want my kids to get that!