How to Budget for the Holidays to Curb Financial Stress
Anyone else ever had the experience of waiting until the last minute to purchase Christmas/holiday gifts and then spending way more than you originally anticipated? You just don’t have any more time to keep looking for deals! I’ve found that the best way to combat that is to plan ahead and make a budget. Easier said than done, right?! Time just seems to go faster in November and December...
BUT hopefully you are reading this prior to the week before Christmas and have time to come up with a plan. Having a plan, aka a budget in our case, will not only save you time with your holiday shopping, but will save you money too.
Why a holiday budget is important
This is the most important thing about budgets, including your holiday budget. BUDGET’S ARE NOT MEANT TO BE RESTRICTIVE, BUDGETS GIVE YOU FREEDOM TO SPEND ON THE THINGS YOU VALUE. Creating a budget for the holidays allows you to do several things.
A budget gives you a set amount or GOAL to be saving for, so that you can save over time as necessary. Going into debt for the holidays is crap, you want to be able to spend cash and feel good about your purchases!
A budget outlines how much you are spending on someone (or a host gift, meal, etc.), so you don’t need to be second guessing once ya get into Target ;) .
When you know how much you are spending on each person or situation, you can plan out exactly what you need to purchase. You walk into the store (or website!) with a list and boom you’re out and headed home!
It’s SO important to feel good about what we are spending our money on. When we have a budget, we know we are spending within our means and this opens up room to feel good about our purchases and money!
Things to remember when creating your budget
There are so many different aspects to the holiday season! These can vary based on religious preferences, culture, family traditions, etc. Before you start laying any numbers out, I strongly recommend just brainstorming a list of your anticipated expenses and then allocating money to each expense from there.
Potential expenses:
Gifts (the obvious one!) → when you add this into your budget, be specific about WHO you need/want to purchase gifts for.
Host gifts → what events/gatherings are you planning to attend that you might want to purchase a host gift for?
White elephant/gift exchanges → do you do gift exchanges for family events? With your coworkers? With your neighbors?
Co-workers, the mail man, etc. → I gave this it’s own category because personally I usually do smaller gifts (chocolate and a card, just something small) for folks I am close with at work. This might also include your child’s teacher, mail man, nanny, etc!
Ask for lists or gift ideas ahead of time
I’m not certain how I personally feel about Christmas lists… Sometimes it is really nice to know exactly what someone is wanting so you can pick something within your budget. Other times you might find something you think is perfect for someone and feel guilty for buying something that they didn’t specify wanting. Hopefully that’s not just me ;)
Either way, asking for a “Christmas list” or gift ideas ahead of time can be extremely helpful. You can do your research, hopefully find a good sale, and purchase something that you know the person will love that is within your budget.
But remember…
The time you spend with those you love and care about means infinitely more than any gifts or money you can spend on them. Bake cookies with your mom, wrap gifts with your little cousin, go out to the cheesy holiday lunch with your coworkers.
With some planning, the holidays don’t need to be a stressful time financially. Creating a budget of all your holiday expenses will leave you feeling good, grateful, and with a much better taste in your mouth than knowing you have a sky high credit card bill that’ll be due next month.
I would love to know what you do to stick to your budget over the holiday season! Has budgeting for the holidays worked for you in the past? Share below!