Being on track with a budget can really ensure that your spending doesn’t get out of hand. This is true whether you have a food budget or an entire household budget. Having a budget for holiday spending can be very important. We all tend to overspend at this time of year.
Let’s get started planning out our budgets. It isn’t very hard to do, but there are certain areas that tend to get overlooked. I’ll help you out on getting everything organized if you would like.
Let’s start as always with the list. It isn’t simply a list of people needing gifts. It can be much broader than that. First, determine the amount of money that you want to spend in total for the holidays. This isn’t just gifts but the amount that will be taken out of savings to cover the costs (stay away from those credit cards if you can). For an example, let’s say that we will allow a very frugal $600 this year (the average person–person, not family–spent about $869 on gifts alone, according to last year’s figures). We spend approximately $400 last year in total.
Next, determine which of the following categories that you wish to include:
- Decorating
- Gift wrap and cards
- Food
- Travel expenses
- Holiday outfits
- Gifts
- Charity
- Miscellaneous supplies (This can include anything from paper napkins to postage stamps).
Assign each of those categories a dollar amount. It all needs to add up to not more than that total budget.
Your budget may look like this:
- Decorating $30
- Gift wrap and cards $15
- Food $100
- Travel expenses $50
- Holiday outfits $60
- Gifts $240
- Charity $100
- Miscellaneous supplies $5
You can be a little flexible, and borrow here and there, but don’t go above the original total amount. Determine the priorities in your household. For us, we will probably spend $0 on decorating and gift wrap and cards (since we have a good stockpile), with most of our money going to food and gifts. Higher travel expenses probably means less food expense. You may want to include long distance costs, if you don’t have free unlimited service, or any additional categories that make sense to you.
This first step can be tough as you realize how quickly the money can be spent. Take a look at those categories again and see if you can either eliminate or reduce any of them by some creative frugal solutions.
Check back again. I’ll offer some ideas for getting the most value on gift giving for the least expense.
Click here for more articles by Mary Ann Romans.
Frugal Gift Basket: Romance at Home
Trendy Home Made Christmas Gifts
Eight Frugal Things to Do for Christmas
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