The weather is starting to turn, and Christmas is on the horizon! How to save for Christmas? Here are a few things to try in order to save up for the holidays …
Christmas gift-giving isn't for everyone, of course, but it is a tradition for many families.
Almost as much of a tradition is the “January Blues” — paying for all of it the next month!
This is a tradition that we all can do without, right?
How to save for Christmas when you're a few months out
We're not that many weeks away from Christmas now. Assuming for the moment that you are looking to save up $300 for Christmas shopping rather than charging it on credit cards — (hint: you should save up for it) — then one way to go about it is to save $30 per week for those ten weeks.
Here's a Pinterest-friendly illustration of this plan, which I call the “Save $30 for 10 Weeks to Save $300 Saving Plan”:
What follows is a list of strategies that can get you to that $300 by Christmas. It probably won't be exactly $30 per week for 10 weeks, but if you do any of them you're likely to do better than nothing!
On the way to work, or at work
Many of us have jobs with lots of opportunities to spend money there. Here are a few ways how to save for Christmas at your job:
- Pass over the vending machines and get sodas and snacks from the grocery store. Believe me, I get it — it's incredibly easy and tempting to feed those vending machine when you need a quick hit of salt, crunch, or caffeine. They're just right there, waiting. Getting a case of your favorite soda, or a bag of chips, or whatever, at the grocery store will easily be half the cost of the vending machine. And, it will be fresher, too. (You can put these spending roadblocks in place to help yourself out with the vending machines, and other places, too!)
- Pack your lunch instead of eating out. At the place where I work, there's a really good little Greek place that serves awesome wraps. I was dropping $60 a month or so for several months. The lunches were delicious and even fairly healthy, but they were expensive. Now, I pack enough food to keep body and soul together until I can get home again. (You can try my favorite hamburger soup recipe to give you and your family a few meals that are easy to store or freeze.)
- Brew your own coffee instead of hitting the coffee shop. Even a cheap-ish $1 cup of brewed coffee every weekday adds up, let alone a $6 specialty drink. If you do have a $6 drink every weekday, I'll just point out that you can save the whole $300 simply by cutting this out of your spending. Now, I get this too because I love my coffee; it makes me a much happier person. But even trying your hand at your own specialty drinks could deliver a good chunk of that $300. (I love my Contigo stainless steel travel mug for coffee; it keeps my coffee hot for quite a while!)
- (Expert Level!) Adjust your withholding. Do you normally get a large refund after you file your taxes? If yes, then there may still be time to adjust your withholding to keep more of your money now, rather than give it to the government interest-free until after you file your taxes. But beware — if you miscalculate and have too little withheld, then you'll owe penalties to the IRS. Start with the IRS' withholding calculator and take it from there.
Selling and side-hustling
Like to deal or horse trade? Or maybe you have some things that you don't need anymore? Then these tips are for you!
- Sell your stuff on eBay using your free listings. Do you know that you can list 50 items per month for free on eBay? You only pay if the item sells. You can list some of your smaller items there at some reasonable price (be sure to take into account shipping, taxes, and the final value fee) and let a few things ride there until they sell.
- Sell your stuff on Craigslist or on a local Facebook group. For some bigger items, there's always Craigslist or a local Facebook group in your area. We have both. Facebook groups can be set up to be local enough so that someone you know knows a particular seller or buyer. This can make things a bit safer.
- Consign your better items. For high-end items like designer clothes, highly specialized goods, or rare antiques, you may do best in a consignment shop suited for that kind of item. Normally these kinds of purchases take some time because the right buyer needs to come along, but people are out looking for gifts now!
- Flip some thrift store or flea market finds. Yare sales, flea markets, and thrift stores can have all kinds of goods. I bought a plastic box with some IKEA lights in it from a thrift store and resold them for a $60 profit. You could do even better! I keep an eye out for wrapped or unopened items. I check on eBay or Amazon to see if there's a market for them. Or, sometimes I gamble and just buy it on a hunch.
- Look right in your wallet! You could have a treasure right in your wallet, and not even know it! Check out your cash. If it has some kind of error or a fancy serial number then your $1 bill could be worth hundreds of dollars, or even more. The serial number doesn't even need to be particularly fancy; I sold a $1 bill with a serial number with five 7's in it for $4.99. There's a market for these!
- Tutor. Do you have some know-how on a particular academic subject? Then you can put that know-how to use as a tutor. I've made several thousand dollars tutoring various subjects; recently I've charged between $25 and $50+ an hour. One site I've used to good effect for over 50 hours of paid tutoring is Wyzant. They test the tutors to make sure they know what they're doing. The site gets a fair bit of traffic so there are typically a lot of jobs available. And the site handles the money.
- (Expert Level!) Become a Prime seller on Amazon. I haven't gone this far yet, but some friends of mine do quite well. I can only imagine the arbitrage that can go on during the holiday season.
Cut out or reduce your expenses
A recurring subscription for a service is a work of art — for the person selling it! It can be really easy to lose track of what you're paying for, and even how much you're paying for it. There's time to not pay (i.e., save) some of those expenses before Christmas.
- Cancel subscriptions you aren't using anymore. If you keep on top of all of your charges, then there may not be a whole lot in this area to cut, but if not then it could be a goldmine of enlightenment: “I'm paying for that?!” If you can find $100/month of charges that no longer bring value to you, then you're on your way to getting that $300 for Christmas.
- Cancel the landline if you have a cell phone. I'm getting really close to pulling the trigger on this one myself for a few reasons: (a) Everyone in my family has a cell phone; (b) at least 90% of the calls we get are marketing calls or
robo -dialers; (c) we just don't talk on the phone all that much anyway! Even if we replaced this with VOIP or something similar, it would be $35 less per month that we're paying. - Switch cell phone plans if you're able. Are you a loyal customer to your cell provider? No? Well, I was a slow learner in this regard. Between my wife and I (with two add-on lines for her parents) we were shelling out nearly $150/month for cell phone service that was nowhere near unlimited data. (And I had a dumbphone!) We made the switch to Republic Wireless, and now we're paying only $45/month, and we both have smartphones. (Here's my initial experience with Republic Wireless.) That's an ongoing savings of about $50/month (factoring in that my parents-in-law got their own plans).
App up your savings
Use the powers of technology for good by taking advantage of free or found money with apps!
- Use the Ibotta app to save at stores. This app is a new one that I've tried recently as of this writing. It's a bit like coupons on steroids. You choose rebates for one of hundreds of stores, shop like you normally do, then scan your receipt and a few barcodes to trigger the rebates. Not rocket science at all. Sign up for free now and grab some easy savings!
- Use Swagbucks. Get free gift cards for doing easy tasks that you're probably already doing for free anyway. I've earned hundreds of dollars in gift cards from Swagbucks, and you can too!
Header Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash
