LocationsHow to Plan for Next Year’s Holiday Shopping Now
The holiday shopping season tends to creep up on us all.
Rather than find yourself stressing out over how you’ll come up with the money for all your gifts yet another year in a row, start planning now for next year’s gift giving season with these helpful tips.
#1 Set a Holiday Shopping Budget Now
While you won’t necessarily know everything you’ll buy months from now, you can still get a great head start by determining the budget you want to work with.
Take a look at what you’re spending this year. A good rule of thumb is to increase that amount by 10%.
For example, if you’re like the average U.S. household, you might have spent $525 on gifts this year. So for next year’s budget, you’ll increase that by 10%, which would be $577.50. (But we like to round up, so a nice $580 works well here.)
#2 Start Saving
Setting a holiday shopping budget won’t do you any good unless you actually start saving towards that goal.
Take your budget and divide it by the amount of months you have left to save until shopping begins.
Let’s say you want to start saving in January and shopping at the beginning of December. Then you’ll want to divide your budget by 11.
Using our example above of a $580 shopping budget, when divided by 11 equals $52.72. That’s just $53 a month for you to save back!
When saving, it’s always a good idea to put that money in a separate account. Otherwise, people have a tendency to dip into their savings portion far too often and find themselves short on cash when it’s time to spend.
#3 Start Making a List of Gift Ideas
It can be easy to overspend during the holidays thanks to the overload of gift ideas coming from every direction. Making a list helps to keep you on track with your spending budget.
While you might not finalize your gift list until closer to the holiday season, you can start by jotting ideas down now of what you might like to purchase.
Bonus: Keep an eye out for the items on your list throughout the year. Oftentimes you’ll find great deals far before the holiday season rolls around – saving you even more money!
Financial Tips to Help You in the New Year
If you’re looking to step up your money game in 2020, we’ve got some incredible tips to help you along the way! Check out these blog posts for all the details:
- Create a Budget for the New Year
- Achieve Your Financial Goals with an Action Plan that WORKS!
- Ditch Credit Cards for Interest-Free Prepaid Debit
For all your financial needs under one roof, visit a South Suburban Currency Exchange location today!