Highs, Lows, and Hair Bows

Stories of motherhood, entrepreneurship, and trying to hold it all together.

  • Home
  • About
  • All Stories
  • Family Life
  • Special Needs
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Inspiration

How We Stopped Overspending (and Over Gifting) During the Holidays

December 14, 2016 by Cherie 2 Comments

It’s time to take back control.

If you stop to think about your Christmas list, it can be overwhelming. Not only are you thinking of your own family, but also likely your siblings and their family, your parents, grandparents, and maybe even cousins or extended family. Then if you go to the next tier you might also be gifting to the other important people in your life, like friends, your children’s teachers, and maybe even the garbage and mailman. This list can be quite overwhelming.

If you are like us, previously, we would head out to stores blindly and buy whatever we thought might be a good present. We didn’t really keep track of what we had bought, and for whom, so we just kept buying. Then, a few days before Christmas, we would gather up all the presents we had stored and sort them into piles. One child, usually our oldest, would have more gifts in quantity and in value than his siblings. Another child, usually the baby, would have the fewest, as “they wouldn’t really notice anyways” (we told ourselves). And usually, we would also realize we had totally forgotten someone on the list, and needed to run out at the last minute to buy a gift. Christmas shopping was a chore.

This wasn’t working for us.

Our bank account would take a pretty big hit during in the month prior to Christmas, and on one full-time salary for our family, it would take a few months to recover financially. However, in the last few years, our family has gotten a handle on not only the list, but also our spending related to the list.

Taking from Dave Ramsey’s principles for money management, we made a budget. On an excel spreadsheet, we listed out everyone that we were to buy for, and even a category for gifting to our community. Then, we gave each person a total. After summing these together, we now had our Christmas budget. Starting that next January, we made an automatic draft from our checking account to a Christmas savings account twice a month. This was manageable for us and we never missed the money since it was being pulled out in smaller increments. By the end of the year, we had all the money we needed for Christmas without draining our checking account.

When comes time to buy gifts, I keep track of the presents bought on that same excel spreadsheet. I list the total of the individual items by person and sum those as well. Now I know how much has been spent and how much remains. I have taken back control.

Christmas shopping is now fun, not worrisome. Our presents also have more thought to them, and we are not over presenting to any one person in particular. Christmas comes once each year. It is not a surprise expense, and it shouldn’t be treated as one.

Have you gained control of your holiday spending in another way that may be helpful for others to know? Please share!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Family Life Tagged With: Budget, Christmas, Spending

About Cherie

Cherie credits her mother as being the first woman inspiration to her. Bringing into this world 12 children, her mother raised them up in faith (usually on a wing and 1000 prayers), and still found time for her writing and getting published.

Comments

  1. Elle Bee says

    December 15, 2016 at 12:39 am

    I’m so glad you posted about this. Spending can get out of control. Did you read any specific books or use any specific organizing tools to get yourself on track budget wise?

    Reply
    • Cherie says

      December 15, 2016 at 10:40 am

      Hi, Elle!

      Yes, we follow Dave Ramsey’s advice on budgeting. It really does work for our family and he has a lot of info out there. http://www.daveramsey.com/get-started/budget

      There is also his Financial Peace University that we watched: http://www.daveramsey.com/store/cFPUclasses.html

      I hope this helps you like it did for us. 🙂

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


Hey there! I'm Cherie. I am an entrepreneur, wife, and a mother to four young children who have special challenges. I'm sharing stories about finding purpose through entrepreneurship and learning how to balance family life through it all.
Read my story...

From Cedar Rapids Marketplace:

Minky Weighted Lap Pad ~ Travel Size

Feather Pattern Weighted Blanket- Choose Weight

Autism Puzzle Piece Earrings

LimeLight by Alcone:

Custom Teen Collection- Not just for teens! Simple collection of great makeup

The Pink Barrette:

Cheer Hair Bows

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Copyright © 2021 Cherie Edilson | All Rights Reserved.
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.