Photo: Country road near my home in Nebraska. We had a white Christmas!
Greetings from Nebraska! Sorry that my articles have been very minimal during the month of December. I have been very busy with my basketball team and this past week we have been in Nebraska visiting my family. I have never been able to accomplish much while visiting my family, because we have so much fun hanging out playing games and catching up. I hope you can forgive my lack of writing this month! Now on to the topic at hand:
Christmas is one of the most expensive holidays. Traveling to see family, buying gifts, decorations and christmas dinner. All of these items can run up the expense of Christmas. There is nothing wrong with spending money for this holiday, but the danger zone is when you spend money that you don't have. Lot's of people around the country buy gifts on a credit card or on store credit and they are paying for it months after the holiday season.
This ways of paying for Christmas can be very detrimental to you finances. The best way to be successful with money is to be out of debt and to pay for things with cash. You can't get a head, when you are paying interest to the credit card companies or the department stores. Therefore, it is always important to plan a head and be prepared for all expenses.
How can you prepare for Christmas? I would prepare by taking this years Christmas expenses and totaling them up. After finding the total, then you will be able to calculate the amount to save monthly. For example, let's make it easy and use $1,200 as our Christmas expense. This family would then take $1,200 and divide it by 12. This gives them $100. This family can save $100 a month and they would have the money saved in time for Christmas and they wouldn't need to use debt to pay for Christmas. Christmas is a wonderful time of year and should be celebrated and should not make you worry about money.
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I wish you all a Prosperous 2016.
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