Christmas is such a fun time of year – to see the new decor, shop for gifts for loved ones, and to do all of the activities. Let’s face it, marketers are really clever this time of year leading us, the consumers, to believe that in order to show how much we love someone we must spend on the decor to create the magic at home, buy all the gifts and participate in all of the activities. You and I both know this isn’t true, but without a budget it is easy to get carried away in this thinking without even realizing it. 

To keep your Christmas on a budget, you should create allowances or expectations for your seasonal costs, (ie how much will you spend on gifts vs food vs activities etc). For my household, we only buy for our kids. With a baby, we know that she doesn’t need much so it wouldn’t be realistic for me to create equal budgets for her and her brother. Instead, I really like the idea of a minimalist Christmas applying “a need, a want, a wear, and a read”. This helps me come up with ideas and helps me keep my buying under control. For the baby, she’ll need diapers (I know not fun, but it’s practical!), an activity cube toy for her want, Christmas pajamas for her wear and for the read, we’re doing a joint subscription to kids’ National Geographic magazine for the year. We also do stockings, and since she will soon be eating table food we went practical here too, and will fill her stocking with plates, cutlery, teethers and baby soap. Similarly for our son, we know he needs pajamas, wants a Lego table (my husband is building this) and Legos, wear Christmas pajamas, and will have a few stocking stuffers as well. Keeping it simple and planning ahead keeps us from walking into every store thinking “Oh! He’d love this!” Though building his Lego table got out of control budget-wise, we were able to stay under $150 for the remaining items total between both kids.

Having little kids, I don’t often want to buy decor so that’s an easy area for me to shave off the budget. I keep things simple, and rely mostly on what I have. Similarly, with little kids, I don’t like to spend money on the outings and activities because you never know how they’ll react. What if they’re in a mood and want to leave shortly after arriving? What if you pay in advance and they come down sick? There’s just so many things (ie drive around to look at lights, visit a free Santa or Grinch, go to a parade) that you can do for free that I try to do as much free stuff as I can instead of spending the money on the other events. This past weekend, we took my son to a local library where he was able to meet The Grinch and have a free photo with him. Afterward, we stayed a little while to check out some books and movies, too. At 4, he is enamored with all of the lights, so I’ve been taking different routes home just for fun to see different light displays before the season is over. 

Christmas comes at the same time every year, so try to plan a little ahead – not saying you need to work up the next year’s Christmas budget January 1st, but if you start thinking about it come at least end of summer, you’re more likely to save with a plan to stick to. What are ways you try to save money during the holidays?