How to Prepare for Hallowthanksmas
- Ron and Meg Knapper
- Oct 10, 2020
- 2 min read
Christmas is coming. Yep, just checked the calendar and they’ve put it on December 25th again. Not only that but I checked the calendar and they’ve put Thanksgiving at the end of November just like they did last year. Before closing my calendar I noticed they put New Year’s Eve not too far after Christmas… again.
There’s a reason they call the end of the year the Holiday Season. These are just the three major holidays most people celebrate from the end of November until the beginning of January. If you are like us we seem to have more “company and family get-togethers” as well as other events that pop up over the last 6 weeks of the year.
There’s travel involved with some of it, which costs money and can cause stress. There’s food involved that is not normally in the budget like baking special cookies and cooking family dishes. There might be gifts, decorations and clothing that are not normally part of your monthly cash flow. (Pumpkin Spice EVERYTHING!)
Why do we let ourselves feel like we are surprised that this is happening?
There is still time! If you haven’t made plans for the expenses of the holidays, START NOW! Setting aside some extra money you can use to offset these extra November and December expenses will make your January and February a lot happier.
Planning for the “Expected Unexpected” can help you prevent overspending. Here are three tips
First Save Now
Second Set a Limit
Three Plan Travel
Setting a spending limit and not going further into debt by putting everything on a credit card will help you have no stress because the bills will not start rolling in to wish you a Happy New Year.
You might even make it a game to see how much cash you can set aside between now and Christmas. How would you feel if you looked into your festively decorated Christmas envelope on December 15th and realized you would not have to take out the credit card for traveling to Grandma and Grandpa’s for Christmas day?
Additionally, set limits on your time and money commitments during this season so you can truly enjoy what you choose to do. Is it really festive and relaxing to HAVE TO GO to the 7th party this month? If your schedule looks like this, we are unable to make it because it is too stressful to get to a holiday party on Friday night, your child’s dance recital Saturday afternoon, another holiday party on Saturday night, and the Sunday School Christmas Pageant Sunday afternoon all in one weekend it might be best to say thank you for the invitation but we won’t be able to make it to your party.
We love parties, holidays, getting together with family and friends too, but we know we have limited time and money to budget. Looking forward and making some plans and setting limits allows us to make the most of the time and money we have. Choosing to set money aside for holiday travel a little each month makes December less of a stress on our budget. Choosing to say no to some holiday gatherings allows us to enjoy the ones we say yes to more as our stress level is lower.
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