I know im not the only one who goes a little bit over budget during the last two months of the year. Specially because i like to give gifts to the people i love, and even tho it doesnt have to be something expensive, this year i want to gift a laptop to my gf because she needs it for work, but it will mess up the balance ive been maintaining all year and its kind of stressing me out
It will not put me in debt, i can afford it, but there’s some other important spending i need to get done this next month and idk how to act.
How do you deal with a spending spree? do you just shake it off? do you just do it and get back on track after?
How do you survive november-december?
byu/CantKillGawd inFrugal
Posted by CantKillGawd
38 Comments
Did you have D.A.R.E in elementary school?
Just say no.
Priorities. Being frugal to a fault is stingy. Buy it if you need it (or a gift for a loved one who needs it). That’s why we stay fiscally responsible, so we have that freedom.
There’s always something we want. Decision is, do you want the thing or do you want to be frugal/stick to your spending plan? It’s never easy to resist, if it were everyone would be frugal.
Can you give her money for part of the cost and stay within budget?
Budget for gifts. Then buying gifts isn’t over budget!
This is also a special circumstance. It’s your partner and she needs it for work. It’s something worth going over for, assuming it doesn’t cause you to default on something else or go into debt.
Are you frugal so that you have money to spend when you need it? Or are you frugal so you can sit on top of a giant pile of money and try to take it with you when you die?
There are both types of people on this sub. Only you can decide which you want to be.
Personally, I save all year so I can go nuts at Christmas. I like gifting, I like giving to charity, I like baking fancy things and cooking elaborate meals, I like buying high quality handcrafts from local artists, I like taking grandma out for baller dinners when she’s in town and taking my mom for whimsical Christmas manicures. And that’s what works for me.
You need to figure out what works for you, then stop second-guessing yourself.
We do not go over budget Nov Dec… because we budget for it. We use r/Ynab
My husband and I have a separate gift savings account with an automatic transfer.
I finish maxing out my 401K contribution usually by October so my paycheck gets a bump in November and December. It helps a lot with feeling able to relax about finances at the end of the year.
I budget but if I did well during the year, that means there’s a little extra cushion for the holidays. If I did not I do sometimes spend anyway, knowing that my cushion will come back after tax season. But I don’t dip below that. If that makes sense. If I have to I will usually just find extra income, to cover something like a laptop. I might trade in a bunch of old electronics, find something refurbished, something along those lines. I think being frugal is all about being creative. This is not advice! 🙂
I budget for gifts (in a “sinking fund”) all through the year so I have money set aside for the season. Then stay with that budget.
If you want to spend more on gifts, just make it part of your plan.
If this laptop is more important than other priorities, then it’s totally OK to buy it IF you aren’t borrowing to pay for it AND consciously decide to reallocate money from one priority to another.
Just don’t buy it then either feel you failed somehow or, worse, resent her for missing your other goals.
Decide. And be good with your decision.
I budget to have extra money this time of year!!!!
I save up money for Christmas all year long and or i buy gifts when i see them in June. Its a lot less stressful than putting all of it on a credit card and then finally paying it off in August. Just to do it all over again.. for the next holiday season. I cut back on gifts and only buy for kids, and wife. Maybe something special for my parents if i see something they don’t have. When you get three paychecks in a single month. Set aside half of one paycheck for Christmas. Put it in a savings account or hide the money in the wall.
I’m not very frugal so take this with a grain of salt, but I buy gifts throughout the year. That way is not a big shopping spree one time. The real frugal thing would be to stop with the unnecessary gift giving, and only get stuff for the children.
If you can afford everything without going into debt then why are you complaining? Be glad you have the money to get fancy gifts for others, some of us are barely surviving and not thinking about giving gifts
By not having anyone to love.
When I make my budget for the year I budget for Christmas gifts. I use last year’s spend as a guide. I budget fairly high for gifts because I like giving them. Usually when the gifts are purchased I’m a bit under so I go out and spend the rest on either more gifts or a specific gift for the Christmas host this year (my MIL or SIL usually). I love that Christmas ends the year so I get to nail my annual gift budget exactly. Right on target. So satisfying
I just shake it off. I have a lot of my finances on semi autopilot. But I also have five kids. My miscellaneous fund doesn’t always cover the crap that comes up in a month. Sometimes (like this month), it will push me off track for the holidays, and I just roll with it. It’s not worth stressing over money. You can always make more money. Lol.
I wouldn’t feel bad if it’s budgeted for. Like someone else said a sinking fund helps. I think that’s sweet to do that for your partner.
We have pared down our gift giving to a handful of people. This year I finally got some family to agree not to exchange gifts with us. To me this is the gift of release from obligations. I don’t dislike gifting but having a holiday centered around it is rough on our finances.
Honestly, I make a mini “holiday budget” and stick to it. Keeps me from spiraling.
We budget – and this year I’m able to grab an extra shift each week at work. Helps that I’m part time retail and not full time. Easy to grab a shift.
I gift a lot of food items, like fancy coffee or tea. That way, people get a nicer version of what they normally consume, but price-wise it’s still reasonable compared to things like electronics.
Not liking gift giving is how I survive. I try to make things as much as possible. I’m lucky that I have people in my life that actually like the stuff I make.
As far as your budget goes, if you can’t afford to give someone a really generous gift, like a computer, without it messing up your budget for the things that you need to spend money on then you don’t have money for that gift. Personally, unless you’re fairly wealthy, I think a computer is too big of a gift for someone who isn’t a spouse. That being said, if you were planning on getting her an Apple, Walmart was selling some older models for a steep discount. Not sure if they’re still doing it though. Sometimes Sam’s or Costco have good deals on computers too.
Do like me
Don’t have any friend and family
Just a partner and agree to have a nice dinner and no gifts needed
You have to keep track on your budget, and spend as little as possible on gifts
I buy gifts alllll year long so my budget doesn’t take a hit for those 2 months. And, of course, I hit all of the sales I can.
Thankfully don’t know anyone or celebrate holidays so no gifts ever. And anyway all buying is frozen until 2028.
Honestly? I can’t afford gifts. I just can’t. I told people in my life a few years ago that gifting actually harms me financially in a way I can never recover from in the following months. I cannot even afford thrift gifting or anything homemade that requires me to purchase any supplies to make the gifts. I can’t bake because it would be using my precious few food resources. The people who love me for real understand and don’t care, we just don’t exchange anymore.Those who are upset about not receiving gifts can throw a tantrum in the corner. I have to live, there are more important things in life than presents. I do not have children so it’s easier for me to check out of gift giving. I am sorry to anyone who feels pressured or forced to give when they really can’t, I hope you find freedom from that burden or find a way to give low cost/no cost gifts.
I budget for gifts, buy them year round instead of all at once, make gifts, get what I can from buy nothing groups and from work (i work at a production company and they always have insane shit to give away), and get everything else from discount stores and thrift shops.
Gifts for my kids only.
My kids are 18 and up now so we’ve set a gift limit for each other.
well, I’m glad we don’t celebrate Christmas lol.
save for it all year
Budget for it, it comes every year, not a surprise expense.
ZERO CREDIT CARD USAGE!!!
IDK if these are still a thing, but when our kids were little our Credit Union had “Christmas Accounts”.
You added money each month (we did $30) and then at the end of November they would send you a check for the money you had added for the year ($330), or put it into your regular account, so you could spend it on gifts and not go into Credit Card debt.
Of course $330 bought a lot more back then, than it does now!
I always thought of it as “hiding money from myself”.
It’s easier when you get out of consumerism & gifting “just bc” of the time of year, not bc you care about someone or what they want.
I have to plan for this. I have 4 kids and 2 of them have birthdays in December lol
I budget. Seriously. I add up everything… how much I want to spend for Christmas, family birthday gifts, and gifts in general (yes, in our budget, they are 3 separate line items).
Say you want to have $1200 “saved” for Christmas. Choose what you are willing to spend… and go backwards. $1200 divided by 12 (months) is $100 per month. Paid bi-weekly? It’s $50/paycheck. If paid weekly… $1200 divided by 52 (weeks of the year) which = $23.08… maybe round it up to $25/paycheck.
Family birthday gifts for us is our nuclear family. Me, hubs, and our 2 boys. 1 is grown and flown, the other is still pre-teen and still has birthday parties.
Gifts for everyone else, for everything ~ birthdays, weddings, baby showers, funerals, etc. we have a set amount we spend towards people outside of Christmas AND family birthdays. For our family, we so no more than $30/gift, unless hubby and I have talked about it and come to an agreement beforehand. The caveat to that is we are strategic in how we spend our money for those items. We put $20-$30/paycheck to “regular gifts” for those not in our immediate family. And let it accumulate over time. Because there are months where we have a lot of people to give presents to (like on my hubs side of family- January and March have A TON of birthday celebrations).
It does help that we have been tweaking and fine tuning our budget for years.
I also- added as of last year- started a sinking fund for the different seasons. For instance we emptied out our “fall season” budget going on an Andretti’s GoKart adventure with friends and it was such a blast!!!! But it was in our budget because we saved for it!!! So while we do a lot of free things, we also set the budget up to make memories with friends and family members… and if it doesn’t get used for the season? We put it away for the next time that season rolls around.
I would love to shower my friends and family with gifts but I hate shopping. Even online. It’s so much waste! Can’t bring myself to do it, only bare minimum.