So the plan from my last post was to review the family budget – especially the Christmas budget – with Hubs.
I bought these adorable desserts. Small, relatively diet-friendly if you only eat one. Lemme just say, this one was MARVELOUS!
It didn’t really work. Hubs fell asleep. He awoke sometime in the late evening, long after I had eaten at least one of the mini-desserts. That said, we managed to briefly review the Christmas budget. Our current Christmas budget is around $900 for just gifts for 18 people. I brazenly suggested we not buy gifts for each other to shave off $100. He said I was being a scrooge. We compromised (sort of) and agreed to just buy each other enough to fit in the Christmas sock with a goal of $50 per person. Fact is, you can fit a lot of expensive items in a large, decorative sock…I sense this will be problematic.
Anyway, it wasn’t super positive or motivating, but at least we got the dollar amounts reviewed, and we will actually track what we are spending on gifts this year, which is more than I can say for previous years. In the past, it’s mostly just been, spend a bit on each person here and there well in advance. Then, at the last minute (around December 23rd) come to the realization that OH, we don’t have enough for so-and-so! And then do a mad shopping spree and go way over budget.
Hopefully we can avoid that this year. Also, we decided to have a Christmas Day pot luck! Mostly for fun, vs. budgetary reasons. Everyone is responsible for bringing a traditional, or non-traditional food item or beverage. It should be very interesting and different from the normal Turkey dinner which is the tradition. We are providing turkey however…can’t seem to let that tradition go!
Let me know how you manage your Christmas/Holiday budget and avoid overspending!