Grandma Stories» dave ramsey

Christmas Preparation – Preparing Christmas Activities, Gift Lists, Cards and Xmas Dinner

Grandma — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:40:35 +0000

Christmas will be here before you know it. Year after year, we strive to begin preparing for Christmas very early into the holiday season, usually months ahead of time. Planning and preparing the various holiday season activities and parties to attend, as well as compiling a list of those we plan to buy gifts for, buying or making Christmas cards, preparing the Christmas dinner menu and guest list, and yes, all of the shopping for budget-friendly gifts.

As Dave Ramsey says, Christmas is not an emergency – it falls on December 25 every year, so you know it’s coming.

Preparing for Christmas well ahead of time, several months in advance even, helps a lot when on a tight budget. Watching for great sales and discounts on potential gift ideas throughout the year, and saving the gifts until Christmastime arrives, is a great help with sticking to a budget and not going overboard on expenses.

Creating a gift list with everyone’s names and any initial gift ideas, along with the total cost of each gift, can sometimes create sticker shock. By the time all of the names are added up, and what you initially think will be an appropriate amount to spend on each person, can sometimes come as a shock to the budget, where trimming names off of the list might be necessary in order to avoid going over budget.

Rather than actually removing names from the gift list, reducing the total amount to be spent on each gift recipient is a good alternative solution. Christmas doesn’t have to expensive, and paying for Christmas gifts with credit cards isn’t a wise choice either, which is why planning and preparing for Christmas by saving up money for purchases many months ahead of time is our preferred option.

We put a lot of thought into what to buy for someone as a xmas gift, and oftentimes we find buying something as a gift that we know is a true “need” vs just things on a “want” list brings us the greatest pleasure during the holiday season. Fortunately for us, it hasn’t been difficult to choose a gift for anyone we buy gifts for. Many times we gather ideas of what to give friends and family simply by paying close attention to any mention of something they’re needing and hoping to buy for themselves at some point in the future, making special note of what they’re needing, and we’re able to buy the item for them as a Christmas gift before they’ve had an opportunity to get it for themselves.

Homemade gifts for Christmas, or for any other holiday or birthday celebration, are among the most unique and thoughtful gifts one can give to another. The time it takes to make handmade gifts varies of course depending on how difficult the project is, which is just one reason why making fleece throw blankets and giving them as gifts is so enjoyable, because homemade throw blankets are quick and easy gifts to make and don’t cost much money to buy the fabric, and choosing fleece fabric that matches home décor is quite easy to do.

I’m not quite sure how many throw blankets I’ll be making and giving as gifts for Christmas this year, since I had already made around 25 throws and given most of them as birthday or anniversary gifts, or my personal favorite “just because” gifts. As much as we enjoy Christmastime with all the family gatherings, parties, dinner feasts and celebrating by giving gifts at Christmas, giving gifts to those we love and adore “just because” we love them dearly is our all-time favorite.

Every year, we create a spreadsheet containing all the names of people we’ll be buying Christmas gifts for, with added columns for jotting down gift ideas, estimated costs, and for making note of when Christmas cards were mailed out and to whom. We also include a column on the spreadsheet for the date gifts were shipped to family or friends living far away, and we keep the shipping tracking information close by to ensure the gifts arrive on time and aren’t lost in the mail.

For the most part, with few exceptions, we tend to spend an equal amount of money on gifts for each person. Sometimes that might mean one person may receive one wrapped present, while another person may receive two or even three gift wrapped presents, which only means we’re keeping as close to equal spending as possible. The only real exception to that is when we’re giving gifts to very young children and grandchildren, since at their tender ages, they can only see that another child has a greater number of gifts than he/she received and hurt feelings can ensue. We prefer to avoid that misunderstanding altogether.

Grandpa and I also find it helpful to split the gift list up, where he chooses gifts for some and I pick gifts for the others, so the responsibility is shared between us and reduces the potential of stress during the holidays. We don’t necessarily split the list equally, right down the middle, but that plan works well for us. Our family is continually growing, and we have another grandchild on the way, so somewhere along the line we’ll probably have to decide on making some adjustments on who we buy for and who may have to be dropped off the gift list.

Many families find that just buying gifts for the young children works well for them and their budget, and the adults receive no gifts at all, but still enjoy the love, fellowship and family gatherings even without gifts being exchanged. There really aren’t any “rules” to gift-giving at Christmastime, nor should there be, but it sure does help to begin saving up for the next year’s Christmas shopping spree in January.

Starting to save money for Christmas very early into the new year allows us the spur-of-the-moment gift buying for those we buy for that love their gadgets and electronics, and we’ve found many discount deals on what will ultimately become a Christmas gift by buying gifts well before the so-called “Christmas shopping season”.

By then, we’re finished shopping for gifts and they’re already wrapped and hidden away months and months before the masses hit the malls and struggle to find parking, while we’re comfy and cozy relaxing at home by the fireplace and listening to Christmas music. No Christmas shopping rush for us. That’s why Christmas planning works so well for us.

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Getting Out Of Debt On Your Own – Personal Finance Blogs to Help Get Out of Debt

Grandma — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:38:37 +0000

Grandpa and I have been working hard on getting out of debt, or more specifically, getting out of credit card debt, on our own. Like many other Americans who are dealing with debt from credit cards and/or loans etc, working hard to reduce or eliminate debt from credit cards became our New Year’s Resolution after Christmas last year.

Of course, there is such a thing as good debt, such as paying for a mortgage that creates home equity – which after a period of time allows homeowners to sell their house at a nice profit if the housing market is right for homeowners to sell their home. Right now, the housing market sucks due to the economy, so there’s no way we’d be able to sell our house even if we wanted to, at least not for the kind of money we’d want and need to get for it.

Anyway, in order to help us meet our goals of getting out of debt completely, we made the tough decision to really tighten our financial “belt” so to speak and focus our time and energies on paying off all credit cards and loans as quickly as possible. One debt-inducing expense each year has been the amount of money that is often spent buying Christmas presents for everyone on our xmas list. We are generous gift givers, to a fault.

As the Christmas season rolls around each year, it seems there have been more and more names needing to be added to our Christmas gift list, and something has to give. Between family, friends, adult children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, bosses, co-workers, etc – the gift giving list and available monies has its limits, especially considering our efforts to get out of debt rather than increase our debt.

As much as we’d like to be able to continue buying everyone gifts for Christmas, as well as gifts for those we haven’t bought for in awhile, getting out of debt has to be given first priority. We’re not getting any younger either. Call it selfish if you wish, but we’re focusing on ourselves and our needs, for a change.

Getting out of debt once and for all means creating and sticking to a tight budget and not creating new debt, so that any and all remaining income from our jobs and money made from being a freelance writer and blogger goes to paying down debt until there is a zero balance on any and all credit cards.

“Getting out of debt on your own” means we are doing this on our own, rather than trusting our money and credit history to possible debt consolidation scams and schemes we hear so much about it on the news and online. A friend of mine was kind enough to buy Dave Ramsey’s book called The Total Money Makeover along with the accompanying Total Money Makeover Workbook as a gift for Grandpa and I to help us in our efforts to get out of debt the smart way.

Getting Out Of Debt Blogs

I’ve been reading many of the top personal finance blogs found online for quite some time now and will continue to do so. There are hundreds of “get out of debt” blogs online, with helpful tips about easy ways to reduce debt quickly, written by knowledgeable and experienced financial experts. Many of my favorite personal finance blogs are authored by people paying off debt just like you and I, who are “blogging away debt” and explaining their journey to a debt-free life on their personal finance blogs, for free.

We don’t need consumer credit counseling help either, and there are a lot of scams regarding those too, so thanks but no thanks. Creating a budget that we can and will stick to isn’t rocket science. Coming up with some easy and simple ways to pay down credit card bills isn’t hard either.

We’re eating out less. We’re watching rented movies at home instead of spending money at the movie theater and on expensive snacks. I quit smoking and the money saved by not buying cigarettes goes towards paying down credit card debt. Brown bagging lunches, instead of eating lunch at restaurants, creates a sizable savings each week that goes towards paying off debt.

We’re also creating a grocery budget, which will help to eliminate needless spending at the grocery store on things we really don’t need to be eating. The fact that we’ve set a goal of losing some weight over the next few months will also help reduce our grocery bill too, since we won’t be spending nearly as much money on snacks and junk foods. We’re well on our way towards getting out of debt, having already paid off a couple credit cards so far, and there’s no stopping us now.

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