Every year, Christmas comes and goes. For years, it always left us with a credit card bill to pay in January. But we have learned a few things over the years which now allows us to not have unexpected bills come January!! It just takes a little time to plan ahead:
- Make a budget
- Don’t forget to include teacher gifts and other little gifts you give
- Don’t forget about all the school, work and friend parties! Most of them require you to bring food and a gift. If this is already in the budget, then it makes things easier.
- Start shopping early so that you can search for good deals
- Amazon has really been my friend the last few years. For most toys, they ended up being cheaper and I didn’t have to go out in the chaos!
- Start wrapping those gift right after Thanksgiving. If you wrap a few presents about 3 times during the week, it won’t all pile up the week of Christmas. I like to do it while watching TV and having a glass a wine. Side note – I actually HATE wrapping presents so I have to make the night enjoyable with other things!! And then sometimes I can convince the hubby to do most of the wrapping!
- Speaking of wrapping presents – wrap each kid’s gift in the same wrapping paper. For example – last year my daughter’s presents were in princess paper and my son’s were in Mickey Mouse paper. This makes for easy unwrapping Christmas morning AND you don’t have to write on each one of the presents. This year, I am going to wrap in different Christmas prints and not tell the kids which one is theirs until Christmas morning so that they don’t go snooping!!
What are some ideas you have to save money at Christmas?!?! Leave in the comment section!
