Spend wisely this Season

First and foremost, be careful this holiday season!

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Every winter, Americans spend about $450 billion on food, gifts, decorations, and other holiday wares. But how many of these dollars are spent frivolously, even foolishly? The average American spends more than $20 on holiday gifts for pets. Don’t get me wrong, I love my dog! But I don’t buy him Christmas presents (or birthday presents). I don’t think he even notices, and there’s money in my pocket for more important things.

Save on Postage: Americans spend $20 billion to mail cards, letters and packages every holiday season. Why not send gift certificates? With online shopping, people can get what they really want! And for much less postage.

Create a Budget and Stick to It
Holiday expenses can add up quickly, and one way to keep the financial damage to a minimum is to create a budget and then track spending. A budget should include the amount the family plans to spend on food, travel, incidentals and even a price limit for each person on the gift list.

Trim the List
When times are tight, whittling down the shopping list can save a lot of money. Aside from cutting the list down to only the closest of friends and family, some options include only giving gifts to children, setting generally accepted limits on what family and friends can spend and drawing names for gifts among family.

Only buy for the kids.
Adults really can buy the things they want, and all too often, the gifts they get are tossed in the closet. How often do we say,”Christmas is for the kids!” Give the adults gift certificates in prearranged sums, so they can get what they want.

Don’t Shop for Yourself
All of those holiday deals make it easy to adopt a “one for me; one for you” mentality. Set a rule that you’ll only shop for the people on your list – and not yourself. The pay off: less stuff in your house and more money in the bank.

Don’t forget the people who really need your thoughts. FindtheMeaning.org says,

The average American currently spends about $1,936 every holiday season. With a few minor adjustments, we could all save some extra cash and send it to someone in need.

If we all gave $130 out of that $1,936, we could end hunger for a year. For $2.13 annually, we could actually save the rain forest. And for $43, we could give every man, woman, and child in the world clean water for at least ten years, eliminating 35.75 million deaths.

Imagine what a holiday season like that would look like.

Melody, MagicKitchen.com blogger