Poll: How do you "afford" Christmas?

[onomatopoeia]

In past years DH and I would be all shocked that Christmas fell on Dec 25th again, and we'd have to go into the regular budget for gifts (and take a little from savings ).

The past few years we've used our reimbursement checks from our daycare FSA to put towards presents...it's kind of like a forced savings then found money. Every check we get back from August on goes into a separate account which is then used for Christmas. The money left over goes back into savings (we don't spend much).

So I'm just curious, whether your budget is small or big, how do you afford Christmas?

[mccallister84]

I do a monthly auto debit into a Ing sub account.

[y4m]

We just won't save as much this month as we do in other months.

[otowngirl]

Bonuses

[Deleted]

We have a gift budget that we contribute to monthly and that covers all gifts throughout the year.

We have pretty small Christmases though. That may or may not change as DD gets older, we're not sure yet. Right now she is still young enough that the box is more exciting than the gift.

[gettingfitt]

I buy gifts through out the year.
Also, October- December we have a strict no buying yourself anything that isn't a need.

[Deleted]

It fits fine into our regular budget since our personal spending goes way down starting in November in order to give us ideas to buy for each other. I only have to buy for both sets of parents, two siblings/spouses and two nephews--budget per gift is $50-75. DH & I spend about $250 each on the other persons gifts.

[KaraOrNot]

I usually start shopping in November, so we just don't put as much in savings for November or December.

[doctorsbaby]

When I worked, I had $25 per week direct deposited into a separate account for Christmas money. That worked great because after the first couple of weeks, I never noticed the $25 missing. In August or September, I would withdraw the money and use it to buy presents. Anything left over went into regular savings.

I'm not working now and DH has his own business. At some point during the fall, I figure out how much we need and just pay him extra. We leave all extra money in the business accounts and only pay him what we need for bills & to live on.

[Deleted]

Bonuses & cash gifts.

[chessie]

Just pull out of savings/or etc during that month. We have a short list and only buy for 4 nieces.

[Deleted]

Dec 4, 2012 13:23:27 GMT -5 y4m said:

We just won't save as much this month as we do in other months.

This. It also helps that we booked and paid for Xmas airfare months ago.

[ssmjlm]

I usually start shopping in August (since my IL's are so hard to figure out) that it just evens out into our regular spending for the fall.

[AAM2012]

We get a large bonus around March/April and put it in a 8 month CD and just use that to pay for gifts, food, booze, etc once it matures.

[SusanBAnthony]

We don't spend much and just pull it out of the regular budget. There are variable expenses every month (car repairs, insurance payments, etc) so as long as one of those things doesn't happen in December, we don't have to take money out of savings.

We arent super strict budgeter's, though.

[Deleted]

We save $70 a month the whole year for Christmas.

[lolo]

My favorite way is to use the gift cards from last year or my birthday...not re-gifting, but to buy gifts using the gcs.

[Susie]

Bonuses.

I've also hoarded credit card rewards and cashed them in in December.

[aspentosh]

Dec 4, 2012 13:23:27 GMT -5 y4m said:

We just won't save as much this month as we do in other months.

This is our approach.

ETA: I should also add that our Christmas spending is usually well under $1000 (closer to $500) so it's not a big deal for us.

[aliciar6]

we don't budget for it, it helps that usually around this time of year we get 3 paychecks in 1 month, but in reality our bills are low enough and we don't spend that much on Christmas that it isn't any big deal. In fact what we spend on Christmas is less that what some of my regular shopping trips used to cost (before I became a saver). Granted this year and last DH and I agreed to a limit on what we spend for our nieces and nephews. I used to spoil my brother's kids rotten...and he never got anything for his.

[SJ]

No clear plan.

Just a mix of regular cash flow, year-end bonus, credit card rewards, etc. I should probably save throughout the year but we don't.

[anna7602]

I start buying presents here and there for DD in about August or September so that the cost is spread out. That said, we don't tend to go crazy for Christmas. And we don't usually have to spend a lot of money on travel for Christmas.

[Deleted]

We've just always managed to cut back a little on other things and fit Christmas into the budget. That means no savings that month, but it works out ok in the end. I don't recall pulling from savings to cover it in the past, and we definitely have never had a separate savings account for it.

Every year I think we should plan better for the next year, but have yet to actually do that. It's always all worked out ok in the end so I guess there hasn't been much incentive. Maybe that should be my 2013 new years resolution, haha.

(we also don't have kids, so I don't think we spend quite as much on gifts as a lot of families do, though it still adds up to several hundred dollars).

We put everything on a credit card for points, so this year we're buying about half the gifts on the December statement (which closes next week) and everything else will go on next month's statement (so we'll buy it all next week after the statement closes). That also helps break it up so it's not all going to hit us at once.

[madringal]

I get a bonus on Oct 31 each year and I use that.

[Deleted]

This year I started buying early in November. I changed who I was buying for and kept it to my immediate family (4 people from 12+) and gave a $30 limit. Nothing fancy, but works for me and my budget.

It helps that I'm single, no kids and have siblings equally as poor and just starting out. We already all opted out of getting each other gifts.

[Deleted]

Dec 4, 2012 13:23:27 GMT -5 y4m said:

We just won't save as much this month as we do in other months.

This. We won't save as much and we don't eat out as much.

[georgeharrison]

Dec 4, 2012 13:21:25 GMT -5 mccallister84 said:

I do a monthly auto debit into a Ing sub account.

This is us, but it's weekly. We have a goal amount and contribute a little every week until we get there.

[shaynaatl]

We have a Gifts line item in our budget.

[GailGoldie]

i start xmas shopping for the kids in August... so it's spread out over a few months- not all at once.

[luvmagoldn]

I usually start shopping in Sept to spread out the purchases and we don't travel for Christmas so that helps.

I keep saying I am going to start a separate savings but so far have not done that.