Time to Get Your Finances Ready for the Holidays
Hate to smash your pumpkin spice dreams, but surprise! Holidays are just around the corner. If you’re planning on getting into holiday entertainment of any level in the next couple of months, your money should be ready. So put aside your latte and take three steps to solidify your finances now. I promise you can get your pumpkin spice back in a moment.
Book your trip
If you haven’t planned a trip to visit family or friends – or just get out of town – do so now. Booking flights at least six weeks before your flight often gives you the best price, and the lower the prices, the higher the demand for Basic and Regular Economy seats will be.
Some flight aggregators will show you if the trip you are planning is a good price or if it might be worth the wait to buy or choose a different day to travel. For example, Google Flights allows you to view a graph of prices by day, and a field tells you if the prices for your trip are low, typical, or high.
Make a budget
I know you’re tired of being told to budget. But when the holidays come, it’s time to make an extra budget specifically for the holidays. Because you know that besides the gifts, the season is rife with annual expenses.
Take a look at last year’s expenses to plan for this year; If you haven’t tracked your spending from previous holiday seasons, make a plan for each of the following categories:
- Food and drink for meetings you hold or attend
- Tips for your regular attendants (hairdresser, cleaner, nanny)
- Travel expenses, including flights, car rentals, gasoline and tolls, and on-call services.
- Exchanging gifts at work or school
- Decorations like a living tree
- End of year donations
Make a debt repayment plan
I don’t recommend going into debt to pay for your holiday expenses, but if you already have credit card debt, you may feel like you are not allowed to party while everyone else is having fun. I’m here to tell you that even if you’re in deep debt, you still deserve to have a good time. Your celebration may not be as big as you might have hoped, but remember that a budget is a living document. You can change it from one month to the next according to your needs.
If you’ve been actively paying off your debt throughout the year, you may be able to reduce it to regular payments for October, November, and December to make sure you have cash on hand during the holidays.
If you still don’t have enough money after paying off the debt, consider buying gifts with deferred payment. It has gotten a bad reputation over the years for charging service fees and demanding initial payments, but many stores have made it easier to pay for items in stock. You won’t have the instant satisfaction of taking things home to pack that day, but you can schedule payments ahead of time before the day you exchange gifts.
How do you prepare your finances for the holiday season? Are you doing anything differently than in previous years?