Oct
golden christmas by krisdecurtis on flickr
Where did the year go? Well it’s that time of year again. Fall is among us and, oh my gosh, Christmas is on December 25th again this year, gasp!
So many of us get caught up in our day-to-day life that we totally forget what month we are in. It’s like you wake up one morning and it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas is only a month away. Here are some numbers for your crunching:
- 69.5% of consumers will pay for Christmas gift with cash, check, or debit card (this is where I fall).
- 25.3% of consumers will use a credit card to finance Christmas (This makes no sense to me. Why would you finance something they are going to hate anyway. Why not bake them a pie, at least they would enjoy it!)
- 5.2% of consumers are unsure how they will pay for Christmas. (This means they probably don’t have cash in the bank, or else they wouldn’t be unsure. My guess, they will use credit.) (bnet.com)
While I must say, I am very impressed that almost 70% of Americans will pay cash this Christmas, what is up with the other 30%? All I can say is that their cash using relatives need to buy them a copy of The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. More on Dave later.
I will have to admit, while I did budget for Christmas last year, I feel I was unrealistic. If I can recall, we only budgeted $300 for all gifts last year (yeah, crazy, I know). Needless to say, we didn’t stay on budget. Santino got a new XBox 360, which cost almost all of the $300.
This year, I was wise and started early. While on our honeymoon in August I had plenty of time to relax and work on my favoritehobby, budgeting! (I know, I know, I’m a little sick.) I decided that when we got home, we would start setting aside $150 a month for a Christmas budget. If my math is correct, we will have approximately $700 by the time Christmas rolls around. This should be more than enough to buy gifts for each other, plus select family members. My goal is to have some left over to save for Santino’s new car, every penny counts. How do you budget for Christmas? What system works best for you? How do you plan on saving money on gifts this Christmas?
