The holiday season is upon us and while you’re preparing for the festivities and gift giving of the season, it’s important to plan your holiday budget ahead of time to avoid unwanted debt in the year ahead.
Budgeting is the most basic and effective tool for managing your money, yet most people avoid doing it because financial planning can often seem like overwhelming and difficult work.
Taking the time to budget and plan your finances is crucial because it will:
- Give you more control over how you spend and save your money
- Keep you focused on your money goals
- Provide you with an early warning for potential problems
- Keep you out of debt, or help you work through your debt faster
Flexible and Affordable Mortgage Life Insurance
At AIME, we understand just how important financial planning is to securing your family’s future. We offer affordable and flexible mortgage life insurance to protect your family home and ensure that, no matter what life throws your way, your loved ones will always have a roof over their heads.
Want to know more?
5 Financial Planning Tips For Creating a Great Holiday Budget
The holidays can be a fun and exciting time, but they can also be quite stressful. This is the season of giving, which also means that it’s the season of spending. One of the best things you can do to make the holidays less stressful and to make sure you don’t go into debt is to create a holiday budget.
Don’t know where to start? Here are 5 financial planning tips that can help you create a simple and easy-to-stick-to holiday budget:
1. Make a List of Holiday Expenses
The first thing you should do when creating a holiday budget is to make a list of all the holiday expenses you’ll have. This will give you a basic idea of the things you’ll need to cover and will include everything you need to buy. This includes:
- Gifts
- Wrapping paper
- Travel expenses
- Gift exchanges at work
- Decorations
- Cards
- Any charitable donations
Tip: Most people only ever think about the gifts that they’re going to buy, which is why they often find that money is so tight in December.
2. Determine Your Spending Limit
You must decide just how much you have available to cover Christmas expenses this year. When you are determining your spending limit, be sure that you only use money that you have set aside for the holiday season or any extra money that you can find in your budget.
3. Assign Money to Each Category
Whether it’s gifts, transport, or a Christmas tree, you should divide the money up over the different categories you have. This means assigning a specific amount for each item. This is also particularly helpful when you’re brainstorming gift ideas because a set amount helps you find ideas within that price range.
4. Track Your Spending
When you go shopping, make sure to take your list and your budget sheet with you. As you purchase each item, cross it off your list and subtract it from your running budget total.
Why is this important? This will let you know how your budget is doing at all times and it’ll also make it easier to make any adjustments between categories if needed. REMEMBER: Tracking your spending is the biggest key to successfully sticking to your budget.
4 Financial Planning Tricks For a Stress-Free Christmas
It’s not easy to create and stick to a budget during the festive season, but here are some simple tricks you can follow to make it a little easier:
- Stick to a cash-only system. Putting gifts on credit cards makes it easier to overspend.
- Take advantage of Black Friday sales - such incredible deals can help you save a lot of money.
- If you want to earn extra money to cover your holiday expenses, you may want to consider taking on a holiday-job, such as pet sitting or another temp position.
- Start saving in January to make Christmas shopping easier. If you put aside money each month to cover your Christmas expenses, you won’t need to worry when the holiday season arrives
Call Today
To learn more budgeting tricks, or to find out how AIME can provide you with flexible and affordable mortgage life insurance to protect your family’s financial future, contact one of our licensed agents today at 1-844-974-2020 or fill in our online contact form.
