As the pounding headache caused by excessive merriment over the Christmas Season fades, too many of us are faced by the pounding headache caused by the dreaded JANUARY BILL. Is it time to make a change?
Let’s start with those credit card bills. This is the tough part. Did you make good purchase decisions? Could you have enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with 10%, 20%, or 30% less? What would you have to do differently? Do you want to?
An English tradition is the Christmas food hamper: a monthly subscription starting in January results in a delivery in mid-December of a hamper brimming with treats for Christmas. Why not create your own Christmas subscription?
Open a separate account, or sub-account at your bank & transfer 1/10 of the amount you desire to spend on Christmas 2015 each month starting in February. Then spend the total, but only the total on next year’s festivities. Hint: If that 1/10th amount is too high for you to meet your February obligations, you really can’t afford your ‘dream’ Christmas & it’s time to change your definition of what a dream Christmas really means. After all you’re not wanting to go into credit card debt for a few months after Christmas just so you’re able to have a “blowout Christmas season”, it would be better to sort your finances out so you can balance other expenses while still having great seasonal holidays.
