You know Christmas is a time where we all want to shop till we drop and spend, spend, spend right? But we have to make sure that we still have money left for January, since we all know that January lasts six months, and that we survive Christmas and make it through the rest of 2021 and set the pace for next year. It’s time for your Christmas shopping survival guide.

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8 Christmas Shopping Tips!

You know Christmas is a time where we all want to shop till we drop and spend, spend, spend right? But we have to make sure that we still have money left for January, since we all know that January lasts six months, and that we survive Christmas and make it through the rest of 2021 and set the pace for next year. I’m going to give you your Christmas shopping survival guide.

1. Set your budget!

   The first thing you need to do to survive Christmas, not broke, is to set your budget! So, make your shopping list. Make a list of all the people you need to buy for, all the things you need to buy for the house, for the family and for charity. Make that list and calculate how much it’s going to cost you. 

2. Boost your income

   Many people, when they’re setting a budget, forget that a budget actually has two parts. There’s income and there’s expenditure; what you earn and what you spend. So, people plan in detail what they’re going to spend and how they’re going to spend it, but most of us don’t necessarily make plans for our income. And, there are so many ways that we can earn this Christmas season.

   A very good friend of mine said to me years ago, and I’ve always taken it to heart: Christmas is a time where everybody is buying right? Everybody is shopping; everybody has money to spend. That is the time that you need to be selling something. So, find something that you can sell, whether it’s a product or a service, something from your imagination! Get the kids together and do a talent show; get the entire community involved. Get your auntie to bring some cakes, or cookies, and make it a whole production. And that doesn’t cost you anything, except your own creativity and your own time. 

   So, if you have a product or a service that you can sell, if you make earrings, now is the time to sell them. You want to launch an online video course, like I’m about to do? Now is the time to sell it. Check out my Investing for Beginners Master Class. We’ll come to that more later as well. 

3. Avoid credit card debtNow, another trap that we all fall into at Christmas time, is to whip out those credit cards, right? It’s so easy and so convenient because you can just buy now and pay later. You just swipe it or tap it and you get to pay at another point in time. But don’t forget, credit cards have among the highest percentage interest rate that you can pay on a loan. A credit card is a loan; even though you’re not paying now, you will pay later. The average credit card interest rate in Jamaica is 40%. Four. Zero. So, if you’re going to use that credit card this Christmas, don’t forget: only spend what you can afford to pay back in full before the due date. Otherwise, you’re going to get stuck with that 40% interest rate that you have to start paying back pretty much immediately. 
4.  Avoid high interest debtNow the next tip, related to this, is about micro-loans. So, you go to these micro-loans centers and they offer you these loans and they say “there’s no interest! Just fees!” I’ve seen these. But when you calculate the fees, it really does amount to interest. And the interest rates add up, so it’s even more expensive than putting it on a credit card when you get a micro-loan. So, we’re talking about fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty… I’ve even seen 100% interest on micro-loans. And the thing is that they don’t tell you that this is actually the interest rate. They tell you “Oh, just borrow this amount, and repay this amount or that amount per week or per month,” and this way, they disguise the amount of interest that you actually are paying. 
5. Take advantage of interest free repayment periods. A lot of banks now, are offering this new feature on credit cards, where you can make big purchases, of J$30,0 and above, and you have several months to repay interest free. All you have to do is contact them and make a repayment plan. So, they give you about 5 months, it may be more or less, I don’t remember exactly how many months, and it may vary depending on the bank. But you get several months in which to pay off that big purchase, in installments, without incurring interest. Make sure you’re disciplined enough though, to follow through on that plan. 
6. Track your Christmas spendingThe next Christmas shopping tip is to hold yourself accountable, especially after those big shopping trips. I mentioned budgeting earlier; you want to download a budgeting app, such as Home Budget, that you can use to track your spending. So, after each big shopping trip, log everything that you’ve spent, and check that it aligns with what you had budgeted. And that way you can help to hold yourself accountable for the spending, and ensure that you don’t go over budget, which tends to happen almost every time. 
7. Only buy sale items if you already planned to buy the itemSo, there’s always a sale every Christmas, right? But here’s my next tip: Only buy items on sale if you had already planned to purchase those items. Otherwise, you’re not saving any money; you’re just spending money that you didn’t plan to spend! So, a sale is a psychological thing. They make you feel like you’re saving money because the item is marked down. And trust me, sometimes these items aren’t really marked down. They actually mark it up before the sale, and then mark it down after the sale. We know the tricks! But it’s all a psychological impact, because they make you feel like you’re saving money because you’re not paying full price for the item. But you’re spending money that you didn’t plan to spend, so you’re not saving anything at all! So, here’s my tip: don’t buy sale items unless you already planned to buy that item.
8. Give the gift that keeps on giving!So, my last tip is to gift yourself, or someone else, investments! It’s literally the gift that keeps on paying multiple times a year. It literally pays you dividends, and can do so for many, many years to come, building generational wealth. And if you don’t know how to do it, then of course, you can get my Investing for Beginners guide. It’s a six-part video course, it comes with a free e-book and several resources that you can use to track your investments. 

Categories: MoneyMondaysJA