How do we plan financially for Christmas this year?

Hello. My name is Ron Blue, and as we approach the Christmas season, as I've been doing radio interviews (and I've done a lot of them over the last several weeks), I get asked this question frequently, "How do we plan for Christmas from a financial standpoint?"

I think we would do well, especially this year as we are having tremendous economic issues in our country, a lot of fear of loss of jobs, a lot of fear of the consequence of the economic slowdown (What's it mean to me?), to rethink our priorities at Christmastime.

And I have one unalterable piece of advice, and that is, "Don't ever be surprised by your credit card bills in January to the extent that you can't pay for them." It doesn't make a lot of difference to me how much people spend on Christmas -- that's a personal conviction of how they want to do it. But it does seem to me to be poor stewardship and poor financial decision-making when you can't pay off that credit card balance in full in January when it comes.
So, how do you plan for Christmas? Make sure that you have a Christmas budget. If this is the year you need to cut back, cut back. It is no reflection on you as a person. It is a reflection on you and the character that you have to make good financial decisions. So the one piece of advice that I have is, "Don't let Christmas surprise you".

Plan your budget for Christmas gifts -- and however much money you are going to spend over Christmas -- and make sure that you have planned to pay off all your credit cards in January. One simple way to do that is every time you have a credit card charge, enter it in your checkbook and deduct it from your checkbook balance. That way you'll never run out of money.

Please don't be surprised this year at Christmas, don't be surprised at Christmas in January. Plan well and reflect Our Father's tremendous Gift to us-- and He gave us all when He gave us His Son, and that's really the Greatest Gift of all.


Click here for the December 4, 2008 Blog Entry