A money-saving-themed blog called, well, “Money Saving Blog,” chooses not to gripe about the Christmas Creep and instead roll with it, putting together a well-crafted and seemingly comprehensive guide on how to avoid being hosed by the holidays by budgeting for trips and gifts and scaling down expenses as necessary due to economic circumstances.

None of the advice is snow globe shattering, but it’s fundamentally sound and timely because now that we’re into the final third of the year, you may as well begin preparing for the oncoming succubus of holiday spending.

One of the tips:

• Create a plan to stagger your expenses. This will allow you to pay for Christmas expenses using the income that you have coming in rather than putting it all on a credit card. You can plan to make some specific purchases every two weeks or every month in accordance to when your paychecks arrive. Doing this allows you to avoid the interest rates that you’d accrue if you wait until December and put everything on a credit card that takes months to pay off.

The pitfall to staggering Christmas gift purchases is that you may buy gifts that become obsolete and unreturnable by the time you’re set to give them. But the tactic is probably worth a gamble to avoid the end-of-the-year sticker shock.

What measures do you take to prepare for Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus?

Less Than Four Months ‘Til Christmas: A Money Saving Plan [Money Saving Blog]
(Photo: Paxton Holley)

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