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The holiday season is a great time for giving, but unless you’re sitting on some kind of awesome stockpile of ungiven gifts, all that giving can actually wind up getting pretty expensive. And unless you’ve got a job that sees you getting an awful lot, many of us can find ourselves feeling a pretty significant amount of pressure when it comes to all that giving that’s required of us around the holidays. Of course, it’s wonderful to be around your family and friends — as the days get shorter and the weather gets colder, it’s very important to celebrate the people who make us the happiest. Whether you’re giving a ton of gifts, entertaining a ton of people, or are simply just participating in all that wonderful, yearly holiday madness, things can still get pretty expensive around the end of the year, and a lot of us wind up with a few extra new year’s resolutions to make sure we can get back in the black after all that rampant Christmas and Thanksgiving-time spending. It doesn’t always have to be like this, however, and especially lately, there has been a lot of work done towards figuring out how to navigate the holidays without spending an ungodly amount of cash. We’ll talk about some of the smartest strategies that can help you avoid putting yourself in serious debt so you don’t have to start the new year eating ramen for months straight.
One of the best ways to make sure you keep everything under control financially this holiday season is to create a budget. Sit down and make as thorough a list as you possibly can, in which account for everyone and everything that’s going to cost you money during the holidays. Figure out how much you can afford to spend on food and entertaining, and decide how many gifts you can afford to get for those important folks on your list. If times are tough, nobody would blame you for maybe saving a name or two off that list — you can always practice “Buddhist Christmas” and get them a little something the next time you’ve got a few extra bucks in the bank. For the things you do need to buy, shop online and look for special deals, discounts, and coupons where you can find them.
Avoid spending money that you don’t actually have, too. This is a problem common to the holiday season, and if you can not make any purchases that go on a credit card or otherwise use funds that you don’t have physically available to you, then you’ll do a lot towards staying out of debt. Even if you’ve got that handy consolidated credit, you still want to avoid using it if you can. It’s not terribly hard to practice the restraint you’ll need to stay out of debt this holiday season, but with the right strategies you can make sure you start the new year in the black and with total financial comfort.
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