15/12/2016
Well, I’ve got to say I’m enjoying Christmas shopping this year. I hope you are too. To be honest, I haven’t enjoyed it much the last few years. Whilst I really like the idea of buying well thought out gifts for my nearest and dearest, the thought of actually doing the thinking and the going and the buying gives me nightmares. Trying to get a car park, fighting the crowds, finding something you hope they won’t hate because they already have everything you know that they love! But the biggest nightmare of it all generally comes a little later. You know the one….it comes in around mid-January after all the fun and festivities are over and the regret of purchases-past rears its head. Yep, the post-Christmas credit card bill. “Oh crap!”, you think, “I promised myself I was going to do that again…this year was going to be different. I was planning to save for Christmas this year”. What happened to your good intentions? Oh, that’s right – you left them at the shopping centre with best part of your credit card limit!
Not me this year!
Do you want to know what I did? How I can manage to buy what I want to for my family, and not have to worry about the disaster that is the January credit card bill? I get to pay for Christmas this year with my money and not credit card because of my wonderful spending plan. I included a Christmas allowance in it that I said I wanted on December 1 (every year I say I am going to get organised earlier, but that never happens, so December 1 works for me). You can make it available in your spending plan whenever you like, whatever works for you, just as long as it is in there. And as long as it is there, you won’t be needing your credit card to pay for Christmas shopping. It goes without saying though, you still need to stick to the amount you put aside but that is a topic for another day.
How great does this sound? I’d love to know what you think. Contact me at [email protected].
Happy shopping, Merry Christmas, and don’t forget to smile.
