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It’s inevitable – my siblings are starting to think about the holidays looming ahead and have started the annual frantic discussion about how to reduce the expense of buying gifts for our ever-increasing family. It happens every single year . . . although, I admit, it does seem to come a little earlier each year. They see the holiday decorations starting to pop up in the stores and they each go into a panic about how to afford presents for their own children, let alone the nieces, nephews and grandparents. The ironic thing – my family really isn’t very big, but we do seem to increase by a little bit each year. I have a total of 6 nieces and nephews, not really that daunting of a group, in my opinion. However, if you don’t plan ahead for your holiday spending, it can seem a bit overwhelming.

I used to join in their panic . . . asking if we could trade names instead of buying gifts for everyone, throwing out the idea of setting spending limits, etc. The holidays would sneak up on me each and every year - I never seemed to have any money for gifts. It caused me a ton of stress and frankly made me dread the holiday season!

Not any more! Now I just smile to myself knowingly, listen to their conversations, and say that I will go along with whatever works for all of them. It’s not that I have any more money than I used to, in fact, it’s probably the opposite! My expenses have increased along with everyone else’s – gas, groceries, utilities, etc. I just plan better now! I set a little aside each month for holiday spending (based on the total that I plan to spend) and I have a set budget for how much I will spend on each child, parent, etc. Whether my siblings decide to trade names, set limits, or buy for everyone, I can make these adjustments easily from within the total amount that I already have set aside in my holiday spending envelope. And if I end up spending less – which would be great – then I just save that money and look at it as being ahead of the curve for next year!

Jennifer Streiff, Business Development

Tags: Holidays, Shopping, spending

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Credit Cards, Envelope Budgeting, Reaching Financial Goals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.