I have a post over at Beating Broke today about how to rein in holiday spending so you don’t feel buyer’s remorse in January. Here is an excerpt:
Holiday shopping is in full swing now, and you may be feeling the financial pressure. Shane recently quit his job and is working on a tight holiday budget. My husband and I are in the midst of being gazelle intense, so we don’t have much extra money for gifts. Yet even though we don’t have much money to spend this holiday season, I feel great about what we are giving because we are not overspending. We can truly afford what we are giving. Instead of overspending, we are empowering ourselves by spending exactly what we are able to spend. Follow these tips to rein in your holiday purchases this season:
-Freeze the credit cards.
Literally. Put them in water and freeze them. Better yet, put them in peanut butter as we did. Vow not to use your credit cards this month. There is nothing worse than opening your credit card statement and staring at the large number you now owe. The presents have been opened, the holiday is over, but you still owe for the holidays. If, instead, you put the credit cards away, you have nothing to dread come January.
To continue reading, head over to Beating Broke. . .
Just a little tip regarding Christmas gift giving to children — our children have always received 3 Christmas presents (plus a Christmas stocking), because Jesus himself got 3 presents (gold, frankincense, and myrrh). We aren’t even all that particularly religious really — it’s just been a very handy and logical way to give structure and meaning over the years to the open-ended question of holiday gift-giving for kids (we would read aloud the nativity story with the three wise men bearing gifts — made sense to them and they ‘got it’). The three gifts usually work out to be one large-ish ‘anchor’ gift, one medium, and one small (and, because I like to give books as presents, usually included as a gift is a book, or a couple of books bundled together as one gift, per kid), and keeping in mind any gift requests. We began this family tradition when the kids were very young and have continued it on now that they are well into their teens. It works well for us, is friendly to our household budget and has given the kids reasonable expectations year after year (note the additional Xmas stocking they each receive along with their three gifts typically includes goodies such as candy, chocolate coins, cookies, nuts, fruit, a juice drink and other special holiday treats)….
This is a great idea. Maybe we should try this this year. We try to limit the presents from us because the kids have some very generous family members that give them gifts too.
As expensive as peanut butter has gotten over the past few months, I might look at a cheaper alternative 🙂 Maybe a tub of jelly instead, that’s a lot cheaper 🙂
Funny! However, since my previous pregnancies, I cannot stand the smell of peanut butter, so there is no way I will be digging through the jar to get to the cards. Jelly might be a different story. 🙂 Just kidding.