Now that Black Friday has officially come and gone, your bank account may not be too thrilled with all your recent purchases. The holidays are a great time of year filled with friends, family, gift-giving, and major sales. I’m definitely someone who loves spending time thinking about the perfect gift for everyone in my life and because of that, may go a little bit overboard when it comes to spending money on gifts.
With my past Christmas spending habits, I decided this year that I was really going to try to not go overboard when it comes to gift shopping and basically not go broke during the holidays. Whether that be with gift shopping, dinner parties, or decorations, my goal was to have a designated Christmas Bank Account and I could only spend the money that was in the account this holiday season.
I wanted to do this blog post to help others who may also not be looking to go broke during Christmas, (hopefully there’s a lot of you), but don’t know what to do or how to start. Especially being a somewhat recent college graduate with my first full-time job and not a huge bank account, I think that my tips could be useful for just about anyone with any financial status! Below I’ve listed incredibly easy steps for you to incorporate into your life for this Christmas and more importantly, next Christmas as well.
Make a List
As with most of my advice blog posts go, making a list should be your first step when it comes to planning out your Christmas budget. Make a list of all the people you plan on buying gifts for this year. Make a list of everything you think you’ll need; a new Christmas tree, stockings, baking accessories, etc. Lastly, make a list of any events or occasions that you know you have come this holiday season. Laying everything out and putting things into perspective will really make the whole budgeting process a lot easier and stress-free.
Decide on a Realistic Christmas Budget
Now, that there are only a few weeks until Christmas, look at your finances and your list and decide on a realistic budget for this Christmas. This may be a bit stressful being so close to Christmas this year, but even though it may be stressful, you’ll be saving a lot of stress in the long-run from not having to pay off tons of bills post-Christmas.
After your stress-fully budgeted for Christmas this year, you need to set a goal of how much you want in your Christmas account this time next year. This means the whole year you will be putting a little bit of money every week, month, or paycheck towards your Christmas budget. We started budgeting for Christmas in July of this year and even though it was half the year, I feel so much more relaxed about the Christmas season and gift-giving and can actually enjoy the holidays instead of wondering where I’m going to pull the money from for my Christmas shopping.
My Christmas budget includes everything from gifts, food, to decorations. Everything that you wrote in your list in the first step, should be included in your Christmas Budget. You can break down what percentage or amount needs to go to what category, but having it all in one place is really convenient and you just know if it’s Christmas related, it comes from that account.
Direct Deposit
To make sure you stick to putting money away in your Christmas budget, I highly recommend setting up a direct deposit from your bank into your Christmas Account. I get paid weekly, so along with my other bank accounts: car expenses, travel, credit card, etc, money directly goes into the Christmas fund every week without me ever thinking about it. This way it’s out of sight and out of mind and a lot easier to stick to the budget.
I also increase the budget throughout the year when it gets closer to Christmas. Say in July I was only putting $20 a week towards Christmas, whereas now I may be putting about $60 a week towards Christmas. In January, I will put the Christmas direct deposit back down since I now have 12 months to save now for next year’s Christmas. You can either increase it like us during certain times of the year or you can consistently put away the same amount every time. Whatever would work better for you and how strict your budget is.
It’s also important to note that in the beginning, it may seem difficult to put that money away for something so far away. However, I came to realize that at the end of the day, I was going to spend that much money anyway so instead of panicking in November and December to come up with the money, it’s better to put a little bit away every week or month and have the Christmas Budget Account build up over time.
Plan out Gifts Ahead of Time
Lastly, you should plan out all your gifts ahead of time. Even if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, having a basic idea of the gift you want to give to each person in your life is super helpful and will save you a lot of time and money. Instead of just going window shopping and buying whatever you see, you’ll have a well-thought-out gift in mind. Planning your gifts ahead of time is also great when it comes to sales and deals online or on days like Black Friday. Since you already know what you’re looking for, you can then hold out for the best deals on your gifts.
With shopping online, I highly recommend you shop through Ebates. I’ve used Ebates or also known as Rakuten now, for years and you just go to their website, make an account, and you get cashback on nearly everything you buy online. It literally takes no time at all shopping through Ebates. I don’t do a whole lot of online shopping, but regardless you might as well get some money back during the holiday season! If you use my referral link you can get $10 cashback just for signing up at Rakuten. Click here to sign up.
I hope you found this post helpful, I plan on doing some more budgeting blog posts in the future as I think that it could be helpful for other post-grads. What’s your biggest tip when it comes to Christmas shopping and budgeting? Let me know in the comments down below!
