No matter how much we love Christmas and the holiday season, there is always some amount of stress involved. When you are struggling financially this stress can grow to enormous proportions. Worrying about buying everyone a gift or giving everyone a happy holiday season can lead to busted budgets and credit card debt.
I don’t have small children anymore but I know when I did, there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do to see their eyes light up on Christmas morning. I used credit cards and if it wasn’t enough, I wouldn’t pay some bills in December. I would do anything to make sure that they were not disappointed.
This is a list of things that you can do to help reduce the stress and maybe keep your budget intact.
Manage children’s expectations. Ask each of your children this question. If you could only get one gift for Christmas what would it be? This worked really well with my children. If they named something too expensive, I guided their expectations by asking them for the next gift they would want because Santa might not be able to bring that one. When they saw something else they wanted, we would ask them if they would rather have that than the gift they had named. Almost always the answer was no. This takes some practice but it works well to keep them focused on a special gift and not everything they see.
Inexpensive gifts for co-workers. When I worked in an office, giving gifts to everyone who gave them to me would kill my budget. I participate in the secret santa and gave any other co-workers something inexpensive. One of my co-workers gave everyone a candy cane and a Christmas card. It worked and it didn’t cost a dollar.
Keep small homemade gifts on hand. I make cranberry chutney every year. It is a favorite with my grown children and their families. We serve it poured over cream cheese with crackers as an appetizer. It’s not expensive to make and I keep some extra jars on hand to give to friends.
Have a Cookie exchange party. If you want to have a holiday get together and can’t afford to spend an arm and a leg. Have a cookie exchange party. Everyone brings two dozen cookies and copies of the recipe. One dozen to eat and one dozen to share. Everyone enjoys tasting the different cookies and gets to take some home along with a recipe. You could do the same thing with appetizers. This is an inexpensive way to entertain.
Set gift spending limits. This is simply deciding in the family what the spending limit is on each gift. It helps my grown children as much as it helps me. Like a secret santa, we pick an amount that we can afford and whatever gifts we give have to cost less than that. If you have a large family, this can truly save everyone money. By the time I figure up my 4 children, their spouses and my grandchildren, it’s quite a crowd of people. Spending $25 each on gifts would break my budget for the year, but I can manage $10. Using some imagination and really thinking about what each person might like and you can come up with some inexpensive and imaginative gifts that they love.
The holidays should be a time of celebration, not a time of stress. Do you have any additional ways that you manage holiday stress?
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