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How to Budget for Christmas



One of the best parts about the Christmas season is buying and sending gifts to your favourite people. It is easy to get caught up in it all and find that you have spent more than your budget.

The first thing you need to do to manage your spending is to come up with a budget. Let’s take a look at a few tips to help you budget this Christmas.

  1. Have a list of what you want to buy

Knowing what you want to buy before the Christmas season arrives means that you have enough time to shop and find the best deals. You are able to compare prices and decide on where to make your purchases.
In this way, you can end up saving quite a bit of cash, which you can then use to buy other presents for your loved ones. However, if you miss out on the deals and are in a situation where you do last-minute shopping, and are in a rush, then don’t panic. You can still grab gifts for your loved ones and use services that deliver the same day, and be ensured that the gifts reach on time. In case, you are from Melbourne or nearby areas, then you might want to do a quick search using keywords like “Courier Melbourne“, and find a service that suits your requirements. But try and limit resorting to this option and be an active planner.

  1. Make gifts yourself

Another great way to save some cash is making the gifts that you are going to send out to your loved ones yourself.

However, do not wait until the last minute to do this. In case you find that something did not turn out the way you wanted, you have enough time to try again. Avoid last minute rushing.

  1. Buy your items before the holiday season

Doing things the last minute can have its stresses. For one you are in a rush so you may not pick the best items and may even forget some gift ideas that you had.

Buying your items in November means that you have split some of your Christmas costs, and when the time comes to send your gifts, you will have enough cash to accomplish this. For instance, if you were to buy a holiday gift for a relative, who is supposed to graduate soon, then it would be a good idea to make the purchase earlier in the month of November. The reason is, several online stores like Jostens (https://www.jostens.com/graduation/college/) often provide offers on graduation gifts like a Uploma (that can reflect their collegiate journey) before Christmas. Moreover, as said earlier, if you purchase such gifts before Christmas, you might get a chance to buy them at a discounted rate. Additionally, planning gifts beforehand could also prevent you from having the last-minute stress of making purchases.

  1. Change your budget

People tend to spend more during the Christmas season. Sometimes you may want to buy gifts for your loved ones but you begin to feel the strain on your budget as early as November.

In such a case you can rearrange your budget and reduce the spending. If you spend $100 on lunch, take this figure down to $50.

  1. Keep track of your budget

The whole point of having a budget is sticking to it. When life gets hectic you need to check your spending habits and ensure they remain as close as possible to your budget.

At the same time, you may find that some of the things you wanted to do during the holiday season, may not be possible. Feel free to make the required changes. You need to leave some money over for food so make sure that you are shopping mindfully and taking advantage of grocery coupons (check out here) to keep on budget for the holiday season.

  1. Saving for Christmas

Finding out how much you spent the previous year on Christmas shopping is a good place to begin. You can use this figure to estimate how much you will be spending this year.

Then take the number of days remaining till Christmas and divide this by the total figure that you think you will need. If for example you require 1500 this Christmas and there are 100 days left, then you can save $15 each day for your Christmas shopping.

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