With just a little over 4 months to go before the Big Day, we need to have some sort of financial plan in place. Unless, of course, you don’t have to worry about money.

Money is generally tight come December (with all the parties, extra food, visitors, visiting, and gifts), but it doesn’t have to be. I’m usually not very good at budgeting and planning, but over the last few years, I’ve noticed that when I had a budget in place I had peace of mind. Now I didn’t always follow the budget (almost always overspent), but at least I knew that I had a plan and that if things started to fall apart I had a back up.

So, I guess my first Holiday Savings tip is to . . .

BUDGET!

If you’ve never made a Christmas budget before this is what I do:

• Take a piece of paper and divide it into 3 columns (a bigger one and 2 smaller ones).
• Label the big column Expenses, the next column Price, and the third column Actual.
• Next, make a list of everything you need to buy for the holidays – gifts, baking, parties (from napkins and decorations), Christmas cards and stamps, gas for all those long-distance relatives you have to visit, everything you spend for Christmas. Put these under the Expenses column (one line per item).
• Record how much it will cost in the Price column. If you don’t know the cost, just estimate it for now.
• Add up the Price column and that is your working budget for the holidays.
• As you shop and spend money, record the actual cost in the Actual column.

Congratulations you now have your first Christmas budget! I keep my budget in my Christmas Notebook at the back of my lists section (my general to do and cleaning lists are at the front), so it’s easy for me to flip to. Once you’ve done this a couple of times, you’ll basically know what you need, financially, every year and can start saving earlier in the year.

Here are some tips that have been gathered over the years from the folks at the Christmas All Year Forum:

• Have a special jar/tin/container where you save all your loose change throughout the year then just before it’s time to Christmas shop, roll it up and take it to the bank.  (This works especially well in countries where they have $1 and $2 coins.)
• If your bank has them and they suit your needs you can open a Christmas Club account (also check about interest rates and an extra fees they might add – it’s not a savings account if you’re not saving )
• You could put any “extra money” like overtime pay, rebate cheques, and tax refunds  aside just for the holidays
• Coupon savings – at the end of every shopping trip (most people use a fair number of coupons when they go grocery shopping) add up the amount of money you saved (lots of stores do this for you on the receipt), put that amount away and now you’re saving for Christmas.
• Have a yard/garage sale.  Declutter, clean, and make some extra cash towards this Christmas.
• Use gift cards as a savings account.  Purchase reload-able gift cards at places you would normally shop at for Christmas and add a bit to them each month.  Grocery store cards are good since you always need to buy food for the holidays.

Have you tired these?  Do any of these work for you? Please feel free to share your holiday savings  ideas too.