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The holidays are coming up! This means there will be plenty of holiday shopping! The holidays can get pretty expensive, and after all of the craziness this year, you may be short on cash. So, if you’re wondering how to save money during the holidays this year- this blog post is for you! Here are 7 ways to save money during the holidays!
1. SAVE MONEY DURING THE HOLIDAYS WITH A BUDGET
The first step to saving money is knowing how much you’re going to spend. Get together a holiday budget.
Start out by writing a list of everyone you want to buy gifts for this year. Decide how much you are going to spend on each person. Bonus points if you can write down what you’re planning on getting them.
Then, add up all the amounts and see how much you’ll be spending overall. Depending on how many people you are buying for, this may look like a huge number. But, if you’re starting your holiday shopping early, remember that you won’t be buying everything all at once. So you can spread it out over the weeks leading up to the holidays.
Recommended: How to start a budget for beginners
2. AVOID SPLURGING ON YOUR CREDIT CARD
It can be easy to spend money when we don’t see it physically leaving our hand! Try to avoid putting yourself into debt this holiday and avoid using credit cards. These can come back to haunt you in interest fees later. It will be hard to save money during the holidays when you are paying credit cards for months to come!
No holiday is going to be worth maxing out a credit card. It can be easy to forget, but the holidays are about being with family and friends, not how much money you spend on them!
3. NO LAST-MINUTE SHOPPING
Sometimes we can do a little last-minute shopping spree and buy things we weren’t planning on buying. This can blow a hole into your entire budget- Remember your holiday list and stick to it!
4. START SAVING NOW
Depending on when you are reading this, you may have plenty of time to start saving for the holiday now (Assuming you aren’t reading this on December 23rd!)
Once you have a budget set, you may have also figured out a target for the amount of money you plan on spending.
As I mentioned before, if you already know what you will be buying everyone, you can figure out the prices of each item and come up with an estimated amount of money you’ll be spending.
From there, you can break down how much you’d need to save each paycheck to get to your goal!
Depending on how you save the money, for example, if you take it out of your bank account each month and save it in your house somewhere. This may also allow you to pay for items in cash, which can help you visualize how much you are actually spending this year, as opposed to using a credit card like mentioned before.
5. SAVE MONEY DURING THE HOLIDAYS BY HUNTING FOR SALES
We all love a good holiday sale! When shopping, take advantage of Black Friday deals, Amazon Prime Day, and Cyber Monday deals. These deals can really help you stay on budget and make sure that you don’t spend too much!
Remember not to impulse buy though! Shopping with sales can be a dangerous game becuase we think we can spend more if it’s on sale. Just because it’s on sale- doesn’t mean you need it!
6. OPT FOR A SECRET SANTA OR WHITE ELEPHANT GIFT EXCHANGE
This is what my family decided to do once all of the cousins got older. Once there weren’t any more little kids around, we started to do a white elephant gift exchange.
If you’ve never heard of this, it’s when everyone buys a gift under a certain dollar amount (or multiple gifts depending on the price). Then you write down numbers on slips of paper, one for each person. Everyone goes around and picks a number. Whoever gets number one gets up and picks a gift of their choice and unwraps it. The game continues like that, and you can even include “steals”.
For example, if someone with number 5 wants what number 3 unwrapped, they can take that gift instead of chosing a wrapped one. Then, number 3 has to go pick another gift for themselves.
There are different rules for different households. But, this will make it easy for everyone. Each person only spends about $5-25 depending on the price you set. No need to buy gifts for everyone!
CONCLUSION
And there are 6 ways you can save money during the holidays! I love the holidays, but if you’re buying for a big family it can get expensive! So I hope you found at least a few ways you can save some money this year!
Happy shopping!
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