5 Tips to Save Money This Holiday Season

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It’s that time of year! It’s time to start mapping out your spending for the holiday months. It’s so easy to overspend on dinners and shopping around Christmas time, but this isn’t healthy for your budget.

​The holidays are a special time of year for sharing good cheer, great food, and generous gifts with the ones we love. Sometimes that generosity can do some damage your wallet.

Before you map out your Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping, or you plan for your meals and for your travel, consider these 5 tips to save money this holiday season.

1. Create a Holiday Budget or Spending Plan

When it comes to the word “budget” many people often think of complicated spreadsheets and restrictions but no, no, no, it doesn’t have to be quite that complicated!

​A budget will simply help you plan your spending and ensure that there are no surprises at the end of the year. You can even use a budgeting app like Rocket Money to make it a bit easier.

A budget doesn’t have to dampen your holiday joy or make you too stingy. No matter how big or small your holiday spending budget, ensure it is realistic and allows room for your to have fun with family and friends. Also, you can comparison shop around to find the best prices for the things you want to buy.

If you need more tips to save money on travel and food, you can check out the tips in my Thanksgiving post.

2. Make a Shopping List

Shopping for the ones you love can lead to overspending. All of the sales will exciting and tempting - trust me I know! To help you avoid going over budget make yourself a shopping list. On your list include the individuals you plan to shop for and a budget for each person. This budget and list will also help you narrow down the gifts options.

If you had a specific or expensive gift in mind for someone special, you can actually get very detailed with your list and even add the planned gift to the list so you know what you expect to spend and there isn’t room to go over budget.

You can also use budget envelopes for your shopping, one for food, one for gifts, etc. These can make it even easier to keep to your budget!

​One great place to get good deals on your holiday shopping is Walmart. They offer a lot of low prices for things like food to keep your meals cheap and fun presents at discounted prices.

3. Start Your Shopping Early

Don’t miss out on savings by waiting until the last minute to do your shopping. Starting early will help you stick to your shopping list and allow you to shop around for the best deal and not pick up what is left since you started late. If you get your gifts last minute you might not get what you wanted and end up with something even more expensive!

4. Use Your Unused Gift Cards

Check your wallet and around your house to see if you have unused gift cards or ones with small balances. You would be surprised how this can help you fund your holiday shopping

For example, a few gift cards with just a small balance on each at a place like Starbucks may be enough to get a gift from Starbucks for a boss or coworker.

You can also get free gift cards for doing surveys by using Survey Junkie! If you have some extra time over the holidays you can complete some easy surveys and cash out your gift cards at places you might want to get your gifts from. This is a great way to save a little extra money. You can check out my review of Survey Junkie to get started.

​5. Try Out Some Unconventional Gifts

You can save money over the holidays by giving out some less conventional gifts. Try printing a photo of you and your best friend, child, parent, spouse then get a frame from the local dollar store.

Another fun idea is to make a wall or desk calendar with pictures of the family for each month for a family member you don’t see often so they can see you every day. These can be accompanied by a heartfelt letter or message to make them even more special.

Bonus Tip

To help you save money this holiday check out some of my freebies on my resource page! There are budget sheets you can use to help you save money this Christmas.

Conclusion

Making your money stretch during the holidays comes down to preparation. Set a budget for yourself this year and get started early so you can avoid excessive spending and bring in the New Year financially stress free.

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