If you haven’t set aside a Christmas budget, start now.  To know how much to budget for next year, keep track of your spending this year.  In this article, I also reveal great tips on how to save when shopping, great stocking stuffers, and my personal Financial Harvest Tips.

Christmas Budget in 4 Easy Steps:

First, set an estimate of what the costs will be for gifts.  Do the same for Christmas decorations, meals for Christmas celebrations, charity donations, travel, etc.  Be specific by listing different categories with a specific dollar amount budgeted.  Then total the categories to obtain your total Christmas budget.

Second, track what you actually spend this Christmas.  This ensures your Christmas budget amount is the right amount and stick to the plan.  Compare your actual spend to each of the different categories you budgeted for.

Third, make a detail list of all the people you will be buying presents for with specific dollar amount for each person.  This list and amount to spend for each person, will help you keep you on track with your budget.  If the amount you plan to spend is higher than the set budget, you may have to adjust by reducing amount of spend per person, or reduce another category of spend within your Christmas budget.

Fourth, Have a separate Christmas fund where you monthly put cash in this fund.  For example, if your Christmas budget is $600 for the year, you would set aside $50 per month and have $600 in your fund by end of the year.

Tips to save:

Many people shop on Black Friday or Cyber Monday for great pre-Christmas deals.

• Shop early – consider shopping throughout the year or even beginning of the new year, stores have major discounts  and you can start shopping for next year’s Christmas gifts to take advantage of great deals, if you are that organized!
• Websites that pays you to shop!

1. Rakuten.com has free membership and you earn cash back on many retail stores listed on it’s site (Amazon, Macy’s, Target, Nike, GNC, and many more).  There is no limit of cash you earn and you will actually receive a check or amount deposited to your PayPal account.  What’s new to Rakuten is you can get paid to shop online or if you buy in-store.

More ways to earn money, Rakuten offers a referral program where you earn $40 for each referral.  And, there are no coupons to worry about.  To see more details on this, go to the link to my blog post, Earn Money While You Shop.

2. Retailmenot.com has free membership and when you click on retail store and cash back offer, you can start shopping.  The offer states the minimum amount to spend in order to get the cash back offer.  Cash will be deposited in your PayPal or Venmo account.  

See my separate blog for more details of how both of these sites work, Earn Money While You Shop..

Faith Tips:

Let’s not lose the true meaning of Christmas and get into debt over “things”.  We can easily get into debt by getting into the spirit of spending more than what we have by putting it on a credit card.  The fun at Christmas time turns into Christmas blues in the new year when we receive the dreaded credit card bill!  Not a good way to start off the new year.

Heed my advice and stay out of debt!  God’s word says in Romans 13:7, we should “owe no one anything except to love one another.”  The focus of Christmas should be about the perfect gift given to mankind.  God gave the best gift to us, Jesus Christ, our Savior.  He is the reason we celebrate Christmas.

So my Faith Tip is to give your best gift to God by giving a financial offering to your church, or wherever the Holy Spirit directs you.  Everything starts by sowing a seed.  Pray and ask the Holy Spirit what financial gift to sow or give, and He will show you.  Just be ready and obedient to what the Holy Spirit says to give.  Harvest will come from it.  Trust me it works!  I have seen results of this in my life when I sowed financial seed at my church.  And, don’t forget to name your seed.  Is it seed for a blessed new year, salvation for family members, co-workers, be debt free?  Remember to sow your SEED and name your SEED.