Christmas Dreams Blog Party Day 3

The party is going strong over at Momdot. Great questions and tons of other great blogs to check out...plus free stuff at the end!!

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Do you budget for the holidays? Do you always stick to your budget? Share with us any budgeting tips you may have!

Hell no, I haven't started my Christmas shopping. Well, I take that back. I received a $50 gift card from Target for posting over at Gather, and I bought some stocking stuffers. Other than that? Nope.

We sort of budget. First, my husband gets a bonus every year. This is what we spend on the kids. The bonus is different every year though. Sometimes it's $400, sometimes it's $1,000. We never know. We can get it anywhere from 2 weeks before Christmas, to getting it on Christmas Eve. Then we use whatever is left over from the few paychecks before Christmas for stocking stuffers and for presents for each other.

We always stick to the budget because we use cash. You cannot spend more than your means that way!! Sometimes it can be frustrating, because we want just one more thing...but in the end it's better to stick to the budget than put ourselves in debt for the rest of our lives for some cheap piece of crap made in China, that will probably b

reak in a month anyway.

To stay with your budget, I suggest the "envelope system." Every payday figure out what you need for bills, gas, food, extras, etc. Stick the allotted amount for each into an envelope that is labeled. When the money is gone, it's gone. There's no way to overspend with cash. This is how we do it. We never go over, and we usually have a little extra left over. It's a little hard to get used to at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's way easy and worth it. Happy shopping. I hope you have tons of fun. :o)

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