This year I made a huge step forward when it comes to organizing my finances. One of my year resolutions was to get better at distributing my monthly budget and spending my money more wisely (especially when it comes to fashion and beauty items). I have seen a major improvement with my finances and now I am more than confident that I can choose where my money will go and how I can save more.
Christmas season is without any doubt one of the hardest period when it comes to planning your budget. You can easily get in the holiday mood and without even realising it spend more money than you can actually afford. Thus, you will welcome the the new year heavily burdened and worried how you can make ends meet at the end of January.
For this reason, I decided to share my five budgeting tips that will help you organise better your holiday budget. Christmas is just around the corner. Is your budget ready?
Budget Tip 1: Christmas is not an emergency
Christmas comes around every December 25th and you should always be prepared when it comes. It is not an emergency so you cannot really use your emergency fund. If you know that you are going to spend money every single Christmas, you should probably make a plan for it and decide on the respective budget. So instead of making Christmas feel like an emergency, plan for it carefully and establish a budget as soon as possible.
Budget Tip 2: Everyone does not need a huge gift for Christmas
I feel that so many times we can get caught up in the idea that all of our family and friends will definitely need the latest and greatest gadget. Or that you must feel obligated to get someone something which in most of the cases results in you getting them a 50 EUR gift card to some random place.
That is not at all what Christmas is about or what it should be about. So instead of spending money on useless gifts that no one is going to use or feeling obligated to buy someone something, think of meaningful gifts that you can buy or even make yourself. Make it your goal this season to figure out what your sister really is into, what she really wants and go and get her something truly meaningful rather than getting her a random gift card or a random candle that she is never going to use.
Budget Tip 3: Categories
Christmas budget expenses include gifts, Christmas decorations, activities, extra giving, special holiday food – basically everything that has to do with Christmas, goes into the Christmas budget. So when you are making your Christmas budget, make sure that you make room for all the additional money that you are going to spend on things other than gifts. Yes, gifts would most probably be the biggest category but don’t forget to include all the other things you might need this season. Sometimes when we forget about the small things, our budget can easily expand and it will be too late for us to revert the situation.
Budget Tip 4: Putting together your Christmas budget
So now that you know that Christmas is not an emergency and that you want to buy meaningful gifts for your family and friends, it’s time to budget out how much you plan to spend in each category. So take the categories (gifts, decor, food, etc) and write down how much you want to spend for each category. Use the same principle you are applying when it comes to the household budget in which you plan your expenses for rent, groceries, utilities, etc. Separate out all of the Christmas expenses so you can come to a grand total of what you plan to spend for Christmas. Also as far as gift giving goes, it is a good idea to put down the names of the people that you plan to actually spend on this year and with that assign them each a value.
Budget Tip 5: Put your plan into action
Start the planning of the budget as soon as possible. I started thinking of my Christmas budget way back in October when I started saving a bunch of money each month that would be specially dedicated to my Christmas money. I know that many people are not lucky enough to receive any Christmas bonuses from their employers, so you need to figure out a way to allocate a Christmas budget with your current resources. Start planning the budget as soon as possible and you will not feel Christmas as a burden at the end of the year. You can divide the grand total by the months you have until Christmas and you will find out how much money you need to save up for your Christmas budget each month.
If you plan your budget ahead of time, Christmas won’t be a burden and financial stress for you. Thus, you will simply enjoy all that sweet family time and Christmas traditions.
Leave me a comment down below and let me know what is one thing that you plan to budget for this year for Christmas.
Love,
Chrisy
