Holidays
Making list, checking it twice
If you want to survive the coming winter holiday season with your finances intact, you need to be like Santa, and make a list and check it twice, experts say.
U.S. consumers are expected to spend $457.4 billion on Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa this year, up 5 percent from 2005, according to the National Retail Federation.
Planning ahead, creating a budget and doing some comparison shopping are simple ways to avoid the temptation to overspend this winter, experts say.
Your holiday budget should include who you plan to buy gifts for and how much you plan to spend on each person.
Although the winter holidays are still two months away, now is the perfect time to create a holiday budget, said Howard Dvorkin, founder of nonprofit Consolidated Credit Counseling Services Inc. and author of "Credit Hell: How To Dig Out Of Debt."
"Plan ahead and plan early," Dvorkin said.
Kern Place resident Julie Griffith, 28, and husband, Joe, use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of family members, friends and co-workers that they buy gifts for, how much they spent last year on each person and what they gave to each individual.
The idea is to have a spending plan and avoid impulse buying, Julie Griffith said.
"If I'm feeling pressured or stressed, I'll spend more than if I thought it out ahead of time," she said.
Griffith also said she started jotting down potential gift ideas in March in an effort to plan ahead.
Having a spending plan in place can help you avoid running up your credit cards and keep you from doing long-term harm to your finances, experts say.
"Ten months of hard work can go out the window with poor planning and by overspending during the holidays," said Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst with Bank rate.com.
Rocio Castruita, education director for the El Paso YWCA's Consumer Credit Counseling Service, recommends making an "early New Year's resolution not to go into debt again this Christmas."
"Think back about last year and the stress you went through," she said. "You're probably still paying off debts from previous Christmases. Ask yourself, 'Do I want to go through that again this year?'"
Jerry Love, an Abilene certified public accountant and chairman of the Texas Society of CPAs, says consumers tend to overspend during the holidays and think about the consequences later.
"The holidays end up being a time of year when we overeat and gain a few pounds," Love said. "The same thing happens to our credit cards. Between making trips and buying gifts, we overindulge with our credit cards and get a big bill in January."
About 65 percent of U.S. consumers carry a balance on their credit cards from month to month, Dvorkin said. The goal is to avoid going further in debt this holiday season, he said.
