Prepare Your Finances for the Holidays
The holidays might not be top of mind…yet, but this month marks the ‘100 days until Christmas milestone. We want to help you get a jump start on the holidays and provide ways you can prepare your finances now, in order to make your money go further when it comes time to shop.
Would you prefer to watch our CSE Couch Chat video on this topic? Check it out, here.
To start, you may want to consider consolidating your debt.
Consolidating your debt can help you in a number of ways from possibly lowering your interest rate, which can lower your monthly payment and can open up some funds in your wallet. This might take some time to go through the consolidation process for your bills, so getting started on that now is a great idea to have your finances in order by the holiday season. Just in time for grabbing those gifts.
Be aware of your credit card spending now.
If you tend to use your card during the holiday season, you’ll want to make sure that you have capacity available without maxing out your card - or utilizing too much of your credit limit by the time you get gifts. Keeping your limit available will help keep your payments affordable once you purchase gifts on a credit card.
Research the best times to make your travel plans.
Airline prices have already been sky-high this year, so if you plan on doing some long-distance traveling during the holiday season, do some research now on the best time to book flights so you can save a few bucks.
Cash-in on rewards.
If you have a high balance of rewards points stacking up, now could be a good time to redeem them. You can use points to purchase gift cards for stores specific retailers if you know where you’ll be shopping, or having dinner out during the season. Not to mention, backup gifts for those last-minute gifting needs!
Squeeze extra money from your budget now.
Now is a good time to change up your habits to start saving some money. Whether you get coffee daily or lunch out during the week, if you switch it up, you can save what you’d normally spend on these items into a separate Christmas club account. For example, if you get coffee every day during the work week, that’s around $20 a week, then assume you buy lunch out at least twice a week and you spend about $10 each time equaling $20 a week, in total that’s $40 a week you could be putting back
Make a holiday budget.
If you’re not already setting money aside for holiday expenses, start budgeting now! By setting up a Christmas Club account to save funds back each pay period, you could have a nice nest egg for your shopping sprees. When considering a budget, be sure to manage your expectations. You don’t need to spend a fortune on everyone. If money is tight, take a frugal approach to your gift giving, and let your friends and family know you’re scaling back. You could even suggest changing things up and doing a gift exchange instead of buying for everyone.
While the holidays seem as though they should be a pleasant, warm time of the year, for most people, the season simply brings varying levels of frustration and unhappiness. While some things are out of our control, your holiday budget is something that you have a say in. We encourage you to formulate a spending plan and stick to it. It just might make the rest of the holidays a little easier to handle.
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