Helpful Tips To Keep Your Holiday Spending Down

It's easy to get carried away during the holidays only to end up regretting making all of those impulse decisions by the time the new year rolls around and the credit card bill comes with it. It's estimated that consumers will spend on average this holiday season around $1100 on average; according to PwC research.

There are some ways that you can plan to keep yourself on track and try to avoid over-spending on the holidays however, and if you take the time to do it then you might be thanking yourself later-on. You'll be glad that you didn't go out buying things that you couldn't afford, so that you wouldn't be miserable afterward while you work to pay it off.

Taking the time to plan out your holiday spending is one of the easiest ways that you can get it under control and try to keep it on a “budget” of some kind.

Before you go to the mall to get started on your shopping, make a list first. I don't enjoy spending time at the mall so I try to limit my trips there and when I do go I try to be in and out as quickly as possible. Having a list of what I need to get helps me remember quicker and I can navigate my way around and be done a lot faster. If I don't go with a list then usually I end up forgetting things that I need or I impulse buy things that I don't need.

It's a basic rule for a reason, a list gives you a goal for your time and helps you to stay on track to reach your goal.

Getting creative is another way that you can cut back on holiday spending. I used to go to the pharmacy and spend a lot of money on individual Christmas cards for friends and family, usually $4-$8 a card. Only to later have them again and again more than likely end-up throwing them into the trash or recycling bin. A much cheaper option is buying cards in bulk or even making them yourself if your crafty with some paper and scissors. Same thing with wrapping paper, why spend a lot of money on something people will just throw away? I've started using just basic brown packing paper or just getting cheap paper from the dollar store etc.

Another one of the easiest ways to cut down on your cost of holiday gifts of course is to make the gift yourself. There are a variety of creative things to do for others that don't take much time, depending on what type of skills you have. But when it comes to the holidays I find that for many it's truly the thought that counts, more than the actual gift itself. It's important to remember not to put so much pressure onto yourself to try and give everyone you know the best and most expensive gift that you can.

Sometimes simply just taking the time to remember them or spend some time with them, giving them a call to catch up, can mean a great deal more.

Investing the time and effort to shop around first and look for sales in a number of different places is also going to help you find a better deal and be able to keep your spending down. Looking online beforehand is an easy way that you can do this, without having to put in the foot traffic of walking to the various physical stores to see what they have. Taking the time to consider these steps and more is really going to help to keep the spending on-track and under control.

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Sources:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethharris/2016/11/30/mindful-money-three-simple-psychological-tricks-to-hack-your-holiday-spending/#78100ee345cb
http://www.pwc.com/us/en/press-releases/2016/pwc-holiday-shopping-outlook-press-release.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kateashford/2016/11/30/holiday-spending-2/#70e2c43b29eb
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2016/11/30/five-ways-to-prevent-a-holiday-spending-nightmare/#1f5e8fd923a3