Holiday spending- How do you save?

[Deleted]

If you celebrate any winter holiday with the exchange of gifts, how do you go about saving?  Do you just cash flow the items, save each paycheck, use another trick?


I was calculating home much we have saved so far so it made me curious what others do.  We have always saved our credit card points throughout the year and cashed them in for statement credit in Dec. or Jan.  This is usually a few hundred dollars ($310 so far this year).  We also save all our change and bring it to the bank to deposit in our account in early December (usually around $100). This year I decided to save all my $5 bills as well.  I am pretty sure someone posted an article on here at the end of last year that suggested this as a way to increase savings.  I currently have $245 in $5 bills. 

With all of these combined I am still a couple hundred short of my Christmas budget but $200 won't be hard to come up with between now and then.

[bostonmichelle]

We have always cash flowed it as it seemed we got "Extra" paychecks in December or November. This year they were in October and went towards house stuff. Next year we are going to do a monthly saving like we do for other things such as vacations as it works out pretty well for us. We will probably use the monthly savings towards all gifts though throughout the year and not just for Christmas gifts.

[audette]

We cash flow it. Save a bit less in December.

But, we buy very few gifts. Three kids, each other, and a gift each in the family gift exchange (if that is still happening this year). If we fly anywhere, travel costs come out of savings.

[ssmjlm]

Cash flow it, but I start shopping early to spread things out a bit.

This year we're only doing kids gifts, so we're definitely just cash flowing the gc's.

[pamela]

We budget $100 per month to gifts and let it build up.

[Deleted]

500/Month into a Roth--it maxes out in November, so a "free" 500 opens up in December. the majority of December $$ comes from this

[Velvetshady]

We have a set amount transferred to saving each month that covers gifts for nieces/nephews/grand-nephews/god-children as well as others annual/bi-annual bills (personnel property taxes/major vacation/etc). We cover gifts for our parents/siblings with cash in Dec. We have 17 kids to buy for right now--it helps to build up the fund over the year.

[Susie]

We use my Q3 bonus for holiday gifts, among other things.

[AAM2012]

We get a bonus in the spring and lock money into a 7 month CD that matures right around Turkey day.

[mccallister84]

I have ING transfer $25 every two weeks to cover Christmas and then I try to cash flow it so that I can just roll the Christmas savings money in to regular savings.

I usually am able to keep most of the Christmas money in savings. I'm a teacher and there are 22 pay periods, but non tax deductions are only taken out of 20 pays. One of the deduction free pays is the one right before Christmas so that helps a lot. It also got a lot better once we went to secret Santa with my siblings and their SOs.

[sarapocalypse]

We usually use money from our "extra" paycheck that we get in either Nov. or Dec. We also have a cash rewards CC and we cash out our rewards in Nov/Dec to add to our Christmas fund.

[MadamePresident]

We calculated the amount of giftable holidays and the number of people in our family. Then decided on an average dollar amount per gift. Then we set aside 1/12 of the total each month. It has worked out pretty well for us the past couple of years.

Now that we have more friends with babies, I pick a gift and buy in bulk at the beginning of the year. Every kid then gets the same thing.

[crashgizmo]

We cash flow it as well, but we also do that with auto insurance, our quarterly pest control, and other non-recurring expenses. That probably isn't the most MM way to do it.

[flatlan]

We get an end of the season bonus at the end of October and a portion of that gets set aside for all things Holiday.

[pamela]

Oct 29, 2013 20:41:01 GMT -5 crashgizmo said:

We cash flow it as well, but we also do that with auto insurance, our quarterly pest control, and other non-recurring expenses. That probably isn't the most MM way to do it.

If your budget allows it, why not? What's not MM is not budgeting, running up a CC then playing catch up.

[skib]

I get five bonuses a year, two of which fall in September and October. When I deposit the check, I get $500 cash from each of those two bonuses. I find that actually having cash on hand to use to buy Christmas gifts really helps keep me from overspending on gifts.

We also save all of our Amazon credit card rewards throughout the year. We pay our card off every month, but we really try to maximize bonus categories, etc. so that we have as many points as possible to help buy Christmas gifts. 90 percent of our daughter's gifts (toys, books, etc.) can be bought on Amazon, as well as gifts for our nephews and many of our gifts to each other. This year we have $1100 in Amazon points to use.

[heygrey]

cash flow.

i do earn swag bucks throughout the year (will do 1-2 searches a day to get points) and i get amazon.com cards with points. i order my parents gifts online and ship straight to their house. no currency conversion, no customs/duty to contend with, no wrapping on my part :-)

we also kind of do an odd savings plan where my parents will give us cash for birthdays and christmas by depositing it in our US bank account. i could write myself a cheque here and withdrawal the money, but if they give us $100 i just take $100 out of our account here and spend it accordingly. then when we go to the states on vacation we have a few hundred dollars waiting for us. any time we can avoid changing currencies it saves us some money.

[kateross]

This year, I have Fidelity take out $100 a month each month, so by end of December, I'll have at least $1,200 to spend\pay my CC.  Then the hit at x'mas time won't be as hard.

[Deleted]

We cash flow it, and it makes me crazy. I spend the week between Christmas and new years grumbling about our huge credit card bill and contemplating taking everything back.

[dexteroni]

When we were broke, we used to save up each month, plus cash in credit cards points for gift cards. Now we just cash flow it and save less in December.

[dexteroni]

Oct 29, 2013 22:01:36 GMT -5 @idaholakelady said:

We cash flow it, and it makes me crazy. I spend the week between Christmas and new years grumbling about our huge credit card bill and contemplating taking everything back.

Tip: When you reach the halfway point in your shopping, pay it off. Two medium bills are easier to swallow than one giant one. We usually pay ours twice a month to coincide with paydays, but our last vacation fell entirely within one pay period, and omg that bill was a rough one.

[M]

H and I use to save all the cash his family gave us for any holiday/birthday into a gift fund just for his family. We spent little during the year and went all out for Christmas and drained the fund. My family doesn't do gifts...time spent together was a gift to them. But we always got them something with my brother so a couple hundred was easy to do.

Now we just put it on the cc and freak out at how high it is after new years lol.

[galaxy8227]

I have $30 a week transferred from my paycheck to my Christmas club account at our credit union. Gives me about $1,500 at the holidays. We use this to buy our presents, and put extra towards a winter house project.

[cransplash]

We have an ING account, and have a sub-account set up for Christmas/Gifts. Thus, we auto-deposit a certain amount of $ into it monthly. We also make sure we put what we need annually and divide it by 11, since we know that we will most likely be taking money out in November to start the Christmas shopping season.

[changedname]

I have about 30-40 people to buy for between H's family and mine so I need to budget. I used to spend about $1000 (in 2011 and 2012).This year I am on track to come in under $500.
I keep a spreadsheet all year and shop as I see things for them. I set a budget per person and try and stay well below it through sales etc.
I don't save for the holidays but cash flow throughout the year (maybe buying a present or two a month from Jan onwards). Presents for my family in the UK have to be mailed by end of Oct so it helps to start early.

This is my first year using Swagbucks and I have made $250 so far which I have used for Christmas presents. I also use any gift cards I have got throughout the year from erewards or any of those things.

Right now I only have 2 more presents to buy.

[partiallysunny]

Christmas Club account that money is transferred into monthly.

[Deleted]

Cash flow mostly Oct-Dec. and I get gift cards for work and usually get some extra in Q4. I have been using credit card points more for wedding gifts, but if I have any left, that's an option too.

[magdala]

We cash flow it but I buy gifts throughout the year. For the adults, I will buy something that is very them when I find it. For instance, on a trip to the Cape this summer, I found pale blue sea glass earrings that match by SIL's eyes. I bought them for her Christmas present.

[winnied]

We just pay cash when we buy the gifts. We don't have to buy too many so it's not a big deal.

[krisandgrace]

I make extra money around the beginning of December on a side business I have. All that money is my gift money but I also pick of things I see during the year and put them on a shelf in my closet so I usually have about a 1/4th of my presents already.