The typical household is anticipated to spend $684 throughout the holiday season. Even while it is a $51 decrease from last year, it is still a significant expense for people to bear during the weeks leading up to Christmas. Since eating a cheap PB&J for every meal isn’t really an option, you’ll need to come up with some solutions to keep from going into debt over the holidays. Thankfully, we have a number. (Think of it as our early Christmas gift to you.)
Make a holiday spending plan.
We are aware of this. It seems so obedient. However, it’s imperative to have a general notion of how much cash you have available to spend on presents, decorations, and entertaining. Start by reviewing your holiday spending from the previous year, making note of how much you spent and what you bought. Next, prepare a list of all the expenses you expect to incur during this Christmas season, including any tips, group gifts, travel, and donations to charities. After that, establish a spending cap for each of these goods and add up your outgoing costs. Can you find room in your current budget for this amount? If so, fantastic; if not, identify areas where you may make reasonable cuts to account for these expenses. If not, you’re probably going to have credit card debt come January.
Install apps
There’s no doubt that you want to get the best deal possible on anything you buy during the holidays, but you have absolutely no intention of taking part in the chaos of Black Friday. Even if door-buster sales after Thanksgiving may not be available, you may still find the greatest offers by using price comparison apps like Smoopa, PriceGrabber, Amazon Price Check, Red Laser, and Shop Savvy. Additionally, you may save even more money by using the excellent coupon apps RetailMeNot and Cartwheel by Target.
Don’t make impulsive purchases
Merchants are constantly enticing you into making impulsive purchases, whether it’s by providing samples, BOGO offers, presents with purchase, playing holiday music to get you in the mood, or setting up tables and stands of stocking stuffers next to the checkout. How then can you say no? Make a shopping list in advance of any trip to the mall, and follow it. Hit the ATM before you go shopping and take out only the money you need to prevent making unnecessary, expensive purchases.
Paying Out Rewards
The holidays can be a terrific time to use your many points if you have them. The majority of credit card companies allow clients to buy gift cards to well-known stores as well as goods (including toys, electronics, luggage, beauty products, and clothing) through an online marketplace on their website. Although the value of the redemption isn’t as high as it would be if you used the connected rewards program to cash in your points (which are frequently travel-related, such as hotel or airfare reservations), isn’t it better to liquidate your rewards account rather than your bank account?
