Holiday Budgeting Tips That You Must Read This Year

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Holiday budgeting can seem daunting. After all, there are 11 holidays every year, 6 of those being major ones that most people celebrate! Then add in Halloween, so that is 7 major Holidays that you may be celebrating and therefore need to budget for. Well, that is where I come in! Keep reading to see how you can do some holiday budgeting that will change your life.

Plan Your Holiday Budgeting Early

First of all, I recommend that you start budgeting for all holidays that you will be spending money on at the beginning of the year. Personally, we spend the most amount at Christmas, and typically we spend around $1000 total. Now, I like to budget this throughout the year rather than have this all hit around October or November, so we make sure that Christmas is a sinking fund. What this looks like for us, is $50 a paycheck ($100/month) from January to October. If you spend the most at Halloween, take this method and budget for the first 9 months so you have everything saved by the time you want to purchase new or additional decorations, party supplies, costumes, etc.

To help you with your sinking funds, I recommend (and use) these budgeting sheets!

We also celebrate Easter, 4th of July, and Thanksgiving on a yearly basis. We don’t go overboard for any of these so what I try to do is budget about $150 for the 4th of July and Thanksgiving and about $50-75 for Easter.

Click here for how I do my budget and include sinking funds!

Holiday Budgeting Spending Review

This is a huge tip, always review what you spent last year and go from there. You may spend less or more, depending on if you have bigger kids or bigger wants this year. My kids are getting older and we are now saving for bigger gifts or experiences. Two years ago we went to Universal Studios in Orlando (we were already there for a wedding so this was perfect). Last year we purchased a year membership to a local museum that my kids love among other things. This year, our budget looks very similar to last year’s since we are not going anywhere like Universal again for a while (even though this would be amazing!)

Traveling

If you have to travel during the holidays, make sure to budget for this as well! Travel can sure add up with flights or gas, food, hotels, etc. We travel sometimes during the holidays, but since travel fare goes up quite a bit around the holidays we tend to stick around home until it comes back to reality.

Don’t Take the First Option!

What I mean by this is shop around. I can’t tell you how many times I have found something cheaper at a different store around me. Just recently, we bought some insulation for our house and one of the local shops cost $470 for the box which covered about 300 square feet. Didn’t seem too bad, right? But when I started researching a little bit more, I found it for $380 for the box! That’s insane, right? So, just make sure you do your research, especially on the bigger items.

Shop the Sales

Make sure you pay attention to sales around you. A lot of stores run sales around major holidays, which is a great time to stock up, too! These are not always the best sales though, so it all goes back to doing your research.

Assign a Budget to Each Person

This is the best way to stick to your holiday budgeting. You have to assign an amount to each person you’re buying for, or each category that you have if this budget calls for it and then don’t stray from it. Let’s take Christmas as an example. You might budget a little more for older kids, your spouse, or your parents but a lesser amount to younger kids, siblings, etc. This is perfectly doable. When my husband and I first started our sinking fund for the holidays, we decided Christmas was the main one we needed to set aside for. Within this, we decided how much to spend on each person. It’s gone up a bit and down a bit, but on average, we know what each person will cost.

Make Gifts

This is a great way to spread the love around Christmas time. We like to make chocolates and other goodies and hand those out as gifts as well. It’s something extra that goes a long way, especially if you don’t want all the “stuff” that comes along at holiday time. We’ve also made actual gifts: coffee mugs, coasters, necklaces, etc. Plus, making gifts is fun! Tap into your creative side, find something that suits your fancy, and get to making!

Arrange a Gift Swap With Your Family

I’ve been part of gift swaps in the past and it was great. As you get older, you don’t need a lot of gifts, so this is perfect. We’ve also done gifting where each family buys for the kids rather than for everyone in the family. The gift swap can be built into your budget as long as you know the set amount ahead of time.

Choose Your Gifts Wisely

Make sure you are choosing quality and worthwhile gifts. Don’t just buy stuff so you can give it away, make sure that person will use it. My kids used to get so much junk in their Christmas stocking and it drove me nuts! Now we are making sure to fill them with things they need for the year, like socks, underwear, etc. They are also huge fans of gum (they’re older so we are good with this) and mints. This is a much better option than getting them junk food to put in there, although we do that, too :).

Create a Wish List

Create a wish list for each person that you are budgeting for. Listen for cues throughout the year and make sure to record them wherever you keep your list. Don’t forget to add your stocking stuffers to this wish list as well!

Holiday Budgeting wrap-up

It is very important to have a plan and a budget to go with that. There’s still time to follow these tips I gave you for this year’s holiday budgeting. Once January rolls around, you should have a good handle on what you want to spend next year.

What other budgeting tips do you want to see? Tell me in the comments!