How To Save Money During the Holidays

It seems that each year, the holidays bring not only fun and family gathering but they bring financial stress as well. To head off this stress, it is a good idea to plan a Christmas budget now during the fall months, so that when the holiday shopping is in full swing, you won't be stressing out over overspending.

There are many categories of holiday purchases that we all make every year. It is a good idea to make your holiday budget comprehensive enough to include all the ways that you spend money on holiday preparations and Christmas related purchases. Here are a few ideas about how to set up your Christmas Budget.

Start early - ideally you should start in January for each holiday season. Many of us don't think about Christmas that early. If you are like most of us, October is when we start to think about the winter holidays. If you do start early, you can take advantage of those after Christmas sales to make purchases of holiday stables like ornaments, gift-wrap, and party supplies.

Make sure you sock some holiday savings away each month throughout the year so that you can have a Christmas Spending account that won't dig into your regular household account during the holidays. The last thing you want is to take money away from paying your monthly bills in order to buy presents.

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You can open a Christmas Club account at most financial institutions including credit unions that you can designate an amount such as $25, or $50 to come out of your paycheck each month and deposited into this Christmas fund. You can even set up auto-transfer for each pay period.

Shop for Christmas year-round. There are many sales events that you can take advantage of throughout the year, saving you money.

Make up a master-shopping list for Christmas that includes each person you need to buy gifts for along with some gift ideas. Keep this in your wallet or purse all year, so that you can refer to it while passing sales items.

Don't forget about the values you can find online. You can comparison-shop to discover what stores have the best deals. When actually making purchases online, don't forget to take shipping into consideration when comparison-shopping for price.

Major stores will often have Internet discounts that are just for their online customers, so check Websites of stores that you frequent most often for these deals.

Save money by baking or making presents for relatives who may appreciate the extra thoughtfulness of these personal gifts.

There may be some people on your list who really do not need or want more "things", but may be happy with the gift of time (running errands for them, or doing yard work, or household chores).

Keep a pocket notebook handy all year and jot down in it whenever someone mentions something they need, or something they see that they would like. When you notice sales events of these items you can then purchase them at a savings. This handy notebook will also assure you that you are indeed buying gifts that the recipients will truly enjoy getting.

Getting Into The Holiday Spirit

What comes to mind when you think about the holidays?

Do you groan, feeling burdened by all you have to do? Do you dread going shopping for gifts or cleaning up after a Christmas or Chanukah celebration?

Or, do you feel a sense of fun, of delight, of joy in the celebrating, giving and receiving?

Which part of you is in charge of the holidays – your judgmental self or your loving self?

 Think for a moment about the little child in you – the child that loved the holidays. What delighted you about Christmas or Chanukah? Most kids are really excited about receiving gifts, but many children also feel equally excited about giving gifts. Did you enjoy decorating your house?

Or, were the holidays a sad time, a time of heartbreak due to not having enough money? Or a time of loneliness due to the loss of a loved one? Were they a time of stress in your family? Was there abuse around the holiday time?

Whatever the situation of the past, you have an opportunity now, as an adult, to give your own inner child the Christmas or Chanukah he or she wants and deserves. You have an opportunity to move into gratitude for what you have rather than anxiety for all you have to do. Instead of choosing to dread or resist the holiday spirit, why not open to it, embrace it, feel the grace of it?

Let the child in you do the shopping for gifts. Let the child in you receive the delight of picking out just the right gift for a friend or loved one. Or let the child in you find some way to give, some way to share your love. Even if you are alone or poor, instead of feeling sorry for yourself, find a way to give your caring to someone who has less than you.

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The holiday spirit is about gratitude and giving. Take the opportunity to notice how fulfilling it is to joyously give rather than to resist or be angry about the work involved.
Take this opportunity to discover how full your heart feels when you choose to feel grateful rather than grumpy.

Feelings come from thoughts. If you choose to think, “Oh no, the holidays are here already. There is just too much work to do,” you may feel anxious and overwhelmed. If you choose to think, “What a drag to have to go out and buy presents,” you may feel resentful. If you choose to think, “Another holiday season and I am still alone,” you may feel depressed. If you choose to think, “This is just a commercial holiday so business can make money,” you may feel angry.

However, if you choose to think, “How can I make this fun?” you may feel excited. If you choose to think, “How can I give to others this holiday?” you may feel open hearted. If you choose to think, “I get to buy things for the people I love,” you may feel grateful.

So who do you want to be this holiday season? You can choose to be a Grinch, close-hearted and angry about Christmas. You can choose to be tense, anxious, judgmental, depressed, fearful, withdrawn, or resistant.

Or you can choose to be happy, peaceful, excited, grateful, loving, open hearted, and joyous. It is all up to you. How you feel is the result of how you choose to think about the holidays.

Why not try an experiment this holiday?” Refuse to allow negative thoughts. Instead, make a list of positive thoughts and as soon as a negative thought comes up, imagine changing channels on a TV, switching to the positive channel. Then notice how you feel!

ESCAPE the Holiday Productivity Blahs

It’s that time of year again: the time of holiday parties, Christmas cards to write, shopping to do (even online…at work!), vacations, family commitments, and more stress.  It is no wonder that a recent survey by Accountemps found that 44% of executives feel employees are less productive the week before a major holiday.

While this may be true, there are ways that we as leaders can counteract all of the distractions and stress and help people be as productive now as at any time of the year. Following are some suggestions to keep the focus and results high as the bells ring louder and the shopping days disappear.  Rather than avoiding the challenges or denying the distractions the season offers, ESCAPE the problems by applying the suggestions below.

Expect good results. Set high expectations and you will typically get great results.  Set low ones and you’ll get the matching results too. As a leader, one of your responsibilities is to set clear expectations and goals for others.  However successful you have been at communicating and gaining understanding on these expectations, the holidays require some additional expectation setting.  Give people a sense of where they are on their annual goals, and encourage them to finish the year strong.  As you set and reinforce these expectations, remember to give people the support and resources they need to succeed.  And of course, lead by example.  Have high expectations of yourself to finish the year strong.

Share spirit.  While some people have a bit of a cynical, stressed out, scrooge attitude towards the holidays, most find their spirits lifted and thoughtfulness is at an annual high.  Encourage people to show their spirit and sense of goodwill when communicating with others inside the organization.  Even more importantly, encourage those sales people, Customer Service professionals and others who communicate with Customers to use that holiday good cheer in their interactions.  Customers will notice and everyone wins.

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Celebrate! You probably have a holiday party at a restaurant or hotel, which is great.  But consider doing an on-site workday event too. There are many options -“Secret Santa”, a white elephant gift exchange, or daily afternoon holiday snack break with different people bringing things each day are just three suggestions.   A little time spent here can help build relationships, bring people closer together and focus them on their work for the rest of the day and week.  Make sure to let people who are interested in these kinds of events plan them – don’t delegate it to the unwilling or overworked because it won’t have the same results.

Acknowledge the challenges and distractions.  Let people know that you realize the holidays are a tough time of year to stay focused.  Share your shopping and social calendar with them, so they understand that you feel the seasonal stress that they feel too.  When people know you understand their situation, you gain credibility when talking about expectations and year end goals.

Present positive anticipation for the New Year.  Give people something to look forward to.  Get them excited about a target or project that will make a real difference early in the New Year.  Giving people this forward focus will help the focus now, but will really help people past the doldrums that can come after January 1.

Engage outside your organization.  Take the lead by organizing a group to lead a toy campaign, contribute to a food drive, or better yet, do something as a team in the community.  Your group will feel proud of their efforts, pleased that their organization supported and encouraged the activity, and the team will improve their relationships which has a long term impact on team health and productivity.

These suggestions individually can help you navigate the holiday season more effectively.  Taken together, however, they will help you ESCAPE the pitfalls and make December a valuable and productive close to the year and a jump start to the new one.