Spend Less

Deciding as a family to spend less is a crucial first step in bringing sanity and meaning back to the Christmas holiday. We should all commit to avoiding debt at this and all future Christmases. Beyond that, here are several choices your family can make to spend less this Christmas.

• Give one less gift per person
• Spend half as much (total expense) as last year
• Purchase store-bought gifts for kids only
• Draw names to buy one gift for a family member
• Decide as a family that no gifts will be store-bought
• Sell before you buy (this is what I did this year. I started selling things we had and didn't need a couple of months ago, and to my surprise I raised almost enough money to cover Christmas this year. I don't recommend this as a year-to-year strategy, and it doesn't address the larger issue that spending is rather unnecessary, but it did show me how much we already have that we don't need).
• Decide as a family what you are going to do with your savings (see Give More posts below)