Say No To Santa

I think the look on her face says it all - What Have I Done? Where did all that money go? How am I ever going to repay this?

If you too are suffering from post-Santa despair, now is the time to ensure it doesn’t happen again. January is never too soon to get ready for Christmas, as long as the getting ready involves a plan to avoid this next one looking like the last one.

Here are Five Top Tips to doing it differently.

Tip 1. Write out a list of all the people you spent money on during the last Santa Season, and how much you spent. Decide now if you want to spend that much on them again this year. Do you want to spend anything on them, or would a heartfelt card, with a lovely message in it be sufficient for you?

Now divide your gift list into 3.

• List One: people to whom I will send a heartfelt card with a lovely message.
• List Two: people on whom I will spend no more than $10 each, wrap it nicely and attach a heartfelt card with a lovely message.
• List Three: myself, my dearest family members and most treasured friend, on whom I will spend no more than $20 each, wrap it nicely and attach a heartfelt card with a lovely message.

Now carefully consider the total dollar value of this list. Can you really afford that much? Do you have the space in your December budget to do this? Do you want to spend that much? Play with the figures until you are comfortable, and cast from your mind any thoughts of the Scrooge concept, which is just a cruel marketing technique to get you to spend more than you can afford.

Tip 2. Now that you know what it’s going to cost you in gifts, divide that by 12. This figure is the amount you will set aside each month to pay for those gifts. No more putting everything on the Fantastic Plastic. Make this next Santa Season a Cash Only event. This takes a little bit of self control and discipline. Agree with yourself that you are not going to dip into this Christmas Gift fund for anything else during the year. Do not fritter away all your gift money! Unless of course you get to September and feel that you deserve a nice little holiday and you’re not going to buy any gifts at all. Then take the money and run!

Tip 3. Tell A Friend. This is really important. Choose someone you trust, who wont try to rubbish your or your attempts, someone who will be supportive and may even want to join you in this. Forming new habits is much easier when done with company. Also, telling a friend makes you more accountable, they won’t let you off the hook so easily as you would do with yourself.

Tip 4. Admit you have a problem. Admit that you need to make a change to the way you are doing things. It’s ok to admit that you need help, and it’s even better to work out your own solutions to this - as long as that solution looks like you spending less money next Christmas.

Tip 5. Forgive yourself. Quit beating yourself up about getting out of control with the spending last December. If you really have blown the credit limit, and you don’t think you can even make the minimum monthly payment, then call the credit card provider NOW. Let them know. They won’t be cranky at you, they do want to help. They want to hear from you if you are having trouble paying them back, and they will be able to help you to sort out what you can afford.

The next part of this is - don’t use that credit card anymore. If you have proven to yourself that you can’t trust yourself with paying back the card and not abusing it, then cut it up, and only make regular repayments. No on-line purchasing, no impulse buying. Only shop with cash. Try it, it is quit refreshing to find that you only have a limited amount to spend each pay day. But first remember to make that regular repayment on your credit card, and keep paying it off.

If you are really stuck financially, there are many places that can help with debt counselling. Have alook in the Yellow Pages or do some online searching.

Whatever you do, do SOMETHING to never have to spend another January regretting December. The best place to start is buy having a look at my e-book: Say No To Santa, so you can learn how to celebrate without consumerism.

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 9:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.