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Ten Christmas Budget Tips

The economy may be in a slump, but that’s no reason not to enjoy the Christmas holidays. Making a realistic budget plan for Christmas can enhance your enjoyment of the holiday season, and avoid months of debt. Here are some budget tips that can help.

1. Make lists. When you’re confused, it’s easy to spend more than you intended. Make a list of people to whom you want to give gifts, along with gift ideas for each person. Then mark off each individual as you buy for him or her. If you are going to be hosting any parties, make lists of guests and the supplies you’ll need.

2. Start early. Yes, everyone says this, but it really is one of the keys to a stress-less Christmas. It’s not unreasonable to start planning in the summertime, taking advantage of summer sales – even yard sales for decorations and accessories – so that you are free to think about more important things when the holidays arrive.

3. Budget with real numbers. It’s tempting to be fuzzy with a budget, estimating and guessing rather than looking at hard numbers. Go ahead and write down your actual income, any Christmas bonuses you anticipate receiving, and how much you plan to spend on Christmas gifts, entertaining, decorating, etc. If the numbers don’t add up, consider taking on temporary work or cutting back on your expenditures.

4. Take an inventory. While you’re making your lists, go through your attic and basement and make sure you are not planning to buy something you already have. There may be Christmas gifts you did not give for whatever reason, wrapping paper, and decorations you might have forgotten about.

5. Hand-make gifts, cards, wrapping paper, and decorations. This is a fun one, and is a great way to include kids in the festivities. Family members especially enjoy receiving creatively presented photos (think collage or nature-inspired frames), homemade ornaments, and presents wrapped in paper festooned with little hand prints.

6. Travel light and make reservations well ahead. Airlines are charging fees for extra carry-ons these days, so lighten up and save some money. Looking for airline and hotel reservations early in the year allows you the luxury of being choosy about the price you’re willing to pay.

7. Deliver gifts and cards in person rather than mailing. Postage – especially rush postage due to getting a late start on holiday shopping – is quite expensive. Bring your cards and gifts to the office, to church, or wherever you are going to be seeing the people on your gift and card lists.

8. Do gift exchanges for big groups. Gift exchanges ensure that everyone involved need only purchase one gift. Set a price range so the gifts will be roughly similar in value.

9. Throw a party with a theme where everyone participates. This is a festive way to combine the social aspect of the holidays with some of the drudgery. Have a cooking party – ask each guest to bring an ingredient and reveal who is cooking what with whom at the party. Or give each guest a decoration and see who can come up with the most creative way to display it at your house. Voila! Decorating done, even if unconventional.

10. Consider unconventional gifts. Not everyone needs a new tie or pair of earrings. Consider giving your time – bring a family a meal, or invite people over and cook for them. Sometimes, the gift of your time means the most.

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Sticking to a Budget

by Tightwad Times

Budgeting your money can be difficult. With so many expenses and random, unexpected purchases, trying to accurately track your finances can make your head spin. In this article, we’ll give you a basic format for tracking your budget so that you can save money.

The first step to creating a budget is to determine a baseline for your income and your expenses. Document everything that you know you normally spend throughout a month, as well as what you can expect to receive monetarily. Note only the expenses and income that you can count on, since they are the basis for your economic standpoint.

After you’ve got your list of incomes and expenses put together, it’s time to determine exactly how your income works. Figure out how much you make per month through your job as well as any other payments that you can count on such as alimony or child support. Next comes the hard part: figuring out all of your expenses. Since you probably have many more different expenses than you do incomes, it’s easy to overlook some expenses that you may partake in. Document them as best you can.

Now what you need to do is weigh your monthly income versus your monthly expenses. By doing this, you can determine pretty accurately whether you are posting revenues or expenses when all is said and done. Now that you know exactly where you stand in terms of monthly revenues, you need to create estimates for your expenses throughout a month. Since bills and needs can vary from month to month, do your best to determine a basic outline for what an expense should cost you.

The basic idea of your budget is now complete. From here, it’s important to track your expenses as best you can, recording any time when you make a financial transaction, be it a down payment on a house or a candy bar at the store. By seeing exactly where your money is going, you can determine what aspects of your lifestyle you can trim to better suit your budget. Good luck, you can do it!

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Creating a Budget

by Tightwad Times

Many people do not consider the importance of a budget. They indulge in spending according to their earning and do not leave room for emergencies. This usually ends up in the incurring of debts and sometimes, personal bankruptcy. A budget helps to counter these consequences.

The essential calculations in a budget are income and expenditure. The purpose of a budget is to ensure that the expenses do not exceed the income and also provide for savings for the future.

A budget needs to be documented in the form of a chart or table. This needs to be easily comprehensible and provide a quick summing up of the relevant details. The chart needs to effectively reflect the different heads of expenditure. Suggested heads are housing and utilities, entertainment, health and beauty, transportation, communication and household. These can be further subdivided as follows:

Housing and utilities

- Mortgage payment or rent
- Insurance
- Taxes and electricity
- Natural gas
- Water and garbage pick up

Entertainment
- Cable television or satellite service
- Internet access
- Dining out
- Bars clubs

- Sporting events, parties, lessons and recitals

Health and Beauty
- Hair-cuts, perms etc.
- Make-up
- Medical, dental, vision, weight loss, diet products
- Nutritional supplements

Transportation

- Car payments, insurance
- Gas
- Routine maintenance, repairs
- Air travel
- Rental cars, public transportation

Communication

- Telephone
- Cellular phone
- Voice mail

Household

– Groceries
- Cleaning supplies
- Laundry, dry cleaning
- Home improvement
Projects, towels, linens

Others

- Credit card payments
- Other loan payments
- Child care, items for baby/elderly
- Allowances for children, book clubs, magazines, music, etc., fast food
- Investments, vacation, spending money, donations to church or charity
- Gifts (Christmas, birthdays, anniversary, etc.)
- Emergency fund
- Cigarettes.

If you have any other expenses that are not covered, you could add them to the list.

Next, try to reflect all expenses on a monthly calculation. For example, if you pay yearly taxes, calculate the monthly expense by dividing the yearly amount by twelve. Having done this, add up all the figures to arrive at the total monthly expense figure. Then subtract this amount from your take home salary amount. If you find the remainder in negative, you need to look for expenses where you ought to cut down. For example, if your take home salary is $1000 and your expenses total to $1150, you would need to trim down $150 each month, from the expenses.

If you need to cut down on your expenses, you would be the best judge to decide where to make the changes. However, it would be prudent to cut back on the extra subscription channels of the television. If you are smoker, cut down on smoking instead. Take home cooked lunch to office instead of eating fast food. Economize on power consumption by avoiding unnecessary use of the air conditioner and heating and make less use of the phone.

Creating a budget is absolutely necessary to manage your finances and is not dependent on the size of your income. It helps to prevent overspending and personal bankruptcy, allowing you keep track of your income and expenditure.

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Quality Writers Wanted

by Tightwad Times

Quality Writers Wanted

Quality writers wanted. Examiner.com is seeking people like you with a passion for sharing their insights with others. Join us.

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Five Ways to Save Money on Prescription Drugs

by Tightwad Times

Prescription drug prices, along with health insurance, have been the bane of society for years. With rising costs of prescriptions, it is no wonder that some individuals are cutting their pills in half thus endangering their own heath. This is unacceptable in our society – yet it continues.

Whether you have health insurance or not, here are five ways you can save on prescription drugs:

1. Ask your doctor to prescribe generic drugs, as they are the least expensive. As stated on MSN Money, “the National Association of Chain Drug Stores estimates that while the average prescription for a generic drug costs about $29.00, the equivalent brand-named drug may cost as much as $101.00.”

In addition, for those of you who have a health plan such as GHI, it should be noted that every year the insurance companies change the rules as far as what drugs are covered under the plan. For example, last year Crestor (a cholesterol drug) was no longer covered under GHI but instead, Zocor was the preferred drug. To preface this point, a one-month supply of Crestor cost over $220.00 compared to Zocor’s generic counterpart Simvastatin which cost only $9.00.

You may say that’s a good thing since the difference in price is substantial. However, Crestor was more effective in lowering cholesterol levels than Zocor, yet the only way one could obtain this drug was by obtaining samples through one’s physician. Unfortunately, a month’s supply was never available for patients. In fact, seniors on Lipitor were also denied this drug by their HMO in favor of Simvastatin.

2. With healthcare costs rising, some people are seeking alternative ways to deal with minor illnesses. Thus, over-the-counter drugs or other holistic remedies are being utilized instead of prescription drugs.

3. If your doctor feels you need a certain prescription for the short term, ask for samples of the drug. This is especially true is the drug does not have a generic counterpart. You may have seen salesmen and saleswomen visiting your doctor at some point during your appointment day; they always bring samples which the doctor keeps in a closet in his office.

4. You may have seen TV ads in which certain drug store chains are offering generic prescriptions for $4.00. As listed on MSN Money, here are the chains you may wish to check out: Kmart, Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart, and Target. Each of these chains offers generic drugs for $4.00.

5. While you can save money by ordering prescriptions online, this is only recommended if you are ordering from Canada. You may have read or seen online drug prices from both Canada and Mexico. Although prescription generic drugs may be cheaper in these places, ordering from druggists in Mexico is a dangerous alternative. There is no way to determine if the drugs are safe, nor can you ascertain whether they are generic or placebos. This can be a costly error and one that can be life-threatening.

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Money

Ten Christmas Budget Tips

Sticking to a Budget

Creating a Budget

Quality Writers Wanted

Five Ways to Save Money on Prescription Drugs

Freebies Galore!

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Follow Tightwad Times on Twitter

Frugal Recipes

Tightwad Living Resources

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