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Top 5 Budgeting Tips to Spend Smart Over the Holidays
BFG gives you smart budgeting tips for staying on track during the holiday.
The holidays can be a stressful time for everyone, between juggling family demands and other responsibilities, to traveling, and of course, buying all of those gifts. Trying to spend smart over the holidays and stick with family budgeting is even more challenging, and sometimes the quickest solutions do not provide the best value.
Luckily though, there are many quick and easy ways to begin spending smarter and saving big with holiday shopping. Use the following budgeting tips to get started, and watch the savings pile up this season.
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Create a Hard Budget: The first and most important of all budgeting tips for the holidays is to create a hard budget. That's a number that the family cannot go over in terms of their gift purchases. With the help of budget tools, it's easier than ever to work with budgeting, and figure out a concrete plan of attack of holiday purchases.
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Divide the Budget: Next, create a list of all family members, friends and anyone else that needs a gift, and begin budgeting accordingly by splitting up that total budget value into individual segments. Now, if John was allotted $40 and Mary $30, but the spending ends up vice-versa, that's fine, but don't get started down the slippery slope of spending a little bit more on everybody, because that can quickly get out of hand.
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Everyone Doesn't Need a Gift (or a Big One): Everybody doesn't need a gift, and everyone who gets a gift doesn't need a big one. It's the thought that counts, right? The whole point of budgeting is sticking with it, so some tough decisions may have to be made. But consider making homemade gifts, baking, sending personalized "homemade" cards, and sharing holiday wishes and sentiments in other ways.
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Deals: Smart holiday shopping is all about buying the right item at the right time. It's not just Black Friday, either, and in fact, many items will be even cheaper in the weeks to come before or just after December 25th. Track the prices of purchases that are being considered, and once there's a deal, jump on it. Also consider looking up online shopping or promo codes to find even more discounts.
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Consolidate: Sometimes the best deals are two-for-ones, or buy one get one 50% off, etc. Therefore, one of the easiest budgeting tips to save big over the holidays is to consolidate. Have three nephews in the family, in different households? Send them all the same gift, or similar items that qualify for the deals, and receive a huge discount.
Plan ahead and shop smarter with the help of BFG Federal Credit Union. BFG serves all individuals who live, work, worship, attend school or volunteer in Summit County, Ohio, (including Akron, Hudson, Twinsburg and Stow), as well as their immediate family and household members. At BFGFCU.org, there are a variety of helpful budgeting tips to take advantage of, as well as a great online budget planner, and other budget tools as well.
