Getting Ready for the Holidays on a Budget

Even if you are in a debt relief program and watching your budget, you can still enjoy the holidays. It is early enough so that you can start getting ready little by little now, instead of spending a lot of money at one time closer to the holidays. Additionally, in years when inflation causes higher prices, it’s more important to adjust when and where you purchase items, so you do not get overextended during the holiday period.  

Shop the Early Grocery Sales

Everyone loves to have big holiday dinners, but they can get expensive, especially if you provide most or all of the food. You can still have a big dinner on a budget: 

• Scale down to immediate relatives.
• Ask your relatives to bring something. Each person could bring a side dish or a dessert.
• Start food shopping now. If you have the freezer space, look for sales for the items you need to prepare holiday dinners. Purchasing the ingredients on sale and freezing them could save you quite a bit. Of course, canned goods are fine on the shelf from now until the holidays.

Know Your Budget and Stick to It

Being in a debt relief program, you already know the importance of watching your budget. However, you can still enjoy the holidays. Look at your monthly budget for November and December. Determine how much money you need for dinners, gifts, and holiday decorations. Each week, set aside the amount that fits into your budget for the next two months. This allows you to shop sales as they come up instead of trying to finagle a lump sum out of your budget later in the season.  

Reuse Holiday Decorations

Some people like to buy new holiday decorations every year. Save that money for gifts or holiday dinners. Use last year’s decorations. You can even have your kids make some decorations. It’s a fun activity that kids of all ages – even the grown ones – can enjoy. If your kids are young and you save their handmade decorations, you can see how they have progressed over the years. 

Pick Up a Side Job

Whether you have a skill you can sell or pick up a part-time job, you could spend all of the money you earn at the job for the holidays since that money is not in your current budget. If you need ideas, ask local social media groups if anyone has work for hours that you are available. If you don’t plan on keeping the job after the holidays, always let potential employers know. Many of them hire only for the holidays.  

Create Handmade Gifts

You can work on handmade gifts now. Often handmade gifts go over very well. Crocheted or knitted blankets, pyrography, table fountains, soaps, or anything that you can make yourself show a person that you cared enough to spend the time to make something just for that person.  

Early Sales

Shop the sales for holiday gifts. That means starting holiday gift shopping early. In fact, some people start their gift shopping the week after the holidays end the previous years. Shopping sales can save hundreds of dollars, even if you are just starting.  

Get Rid of Unneeded Expenses

Cut off extra cable channels for the season. If you have a huge package with all of the movie channels, get rid of all of the movie channels – or at least most of them. You can always turn them back on after the holidays. Check cell phone bills to make sure the plan you have is not too big. If you have data left over every month, scale down to a plan with less data.  

Century has a value added service with Billcutterz to help clients save on household expenses. Learn more about how Billcutterz can help you save money.

Contact Century to Learn About Debt Settlement

If debt settlement sounds like it might be the right debt reduction strategy for you, contact Century Support Services. Century has helped hundreds of thousands of people settle debts that they otherwise couldn’t pay, and has saved clients a lot of time, aggravation and money in the process. To date, Century has settled more than $1.3 billion in debt and maintains a 94% satisfaction rating.

To get started, you’ll receive our free assessment and our Certified Debt Specialists will create a personalized program plan for you.

To learn more about the debt settlement process or if you have any general questions relating to how long does debt settlement take or how long will it take to recover from debt settlement, we’re happy to answer any questions.
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