The holiday season is widely surrounded around giving and shopping between all the events, gifts, and celebrations that occur. Saving is rarely every emphasized well enough during this time of year that promotes spending all of your money.
Saving during this time can make a huge impact on your finances now and prevent you from feeling broke at the start of the new year. Here are four practical ways to save money during the holidays this year while still enjoying it to the fullest.
Set a Budget for the Holidays
Creating a realistic budget is a great way to track and control your spending. If you’re trying to come out of the holiday season with some money left over, you should definitely establish a budget with clearly defined categories so you can be aware of how much you plan on spending.
Include a category for savings in your holiday budget and be sure to set up automatic transfers to pay yourself every month.
Stay Home
I know this may not be the most exciting solution, but as I get older, I’m realizing the power of taking a break and spending time with my loved ones. The holidays are a great time to slow down and catch up with friends and family. You can do all of this right at home.
If you have family coming into town, you can cook a meal at home and relax and watch a movie together or have a board game night. In areas where it gets pretty cold at the end of the year, you can bundle up inside with some hot chocolate and decorate or have people over.
You can save quite a bit of money just by staying in more during the holiday season and avoiding pricey retailers and events that you don’t truly want to attend anyway.
Shop for Discounts and Save the Savings
If you do plan on going out and doing some shopping, try to make purchases only on discounted items and take advantage of seasonal sales.
When you get your receipt after making a purchase, look at the bottom where it shows the total amount of savings you received and actually take that amount out of your checking account and put it into your savings account. For example, if you spend $25 buying a gift for a friend and your receipt says you saved $5.50 on the total purchase, make sure you put $5.50 into your savings account.
This simple trick will help you set money aside every time you make a purchase for the holidays.
Participate in a Gift Swap
The holidays have a funny way of making people feel overwhelmed. At one point, you can be excited about the upcoming weeks but on the other hand, you could be starting to feel the pressure of all the things you need to do along with all the gifts you need to buy.
It’s important to remember to slow down and enjoy the holiday season. Make what you have work and don’t stress out over your to-do list. To help lighten the burden when it comes to giving gifts, you can make gifts at home for people, provide a friend or family member with a favor or cook something special for them instead, or participate in a gift swap.
Gift swaps or Secret Santas are great because they allow you partner up and focus on getting a gift for just one person instead of getting a gift for everyone in your group. When everyone has a partner, everyone gets a gift so no one is forgotten.
Reducing your gift spending will help you stay on budget and maintain your savings rate during the holiday season.
What ways on you planning on saving during the holiday season this year?
Chonce is a freelance writer who’s obsessed with frugality and passionate about helping others increase their savings rate, eliminate debt, and work toward financial stability. She chronicles her journey to becoming debt-free on her blog, mydebtepiphany.com.
