“today i’m going to talk to you about
christmas
budgeting i’ve got a christmas budget
planner for free on my website
and i’m going to share with you some of
my tips and show you how to use it
so you are not even spending this
christmas and you keep those pennies in
your pocket instead
i’m charlotte jessup and this is the
looking after your pennies
youtube channel so christmas can be a
really expensive time of year
and you might already be thinking about
your christmas shopping
oh well into buying those presents
but it might be a good time to just
check in with your budget
and see if you are on track if you are
then don’t worry there are still some
things you can do to try and get it
under control
and if you feel like this isn’t the year
for you to think about it
then you can just save this video and
watch it back next year
there are some great ways that you can
make
christmas budgeting an important part of
your finances
we know every year when christmas is
coming
we know what it’s going to be like and
we know that we’re going to have to buy
presents and food and things like that
for this season so we might as well
start thinking about it in terms of our
budgeting
there are some great ways that you can
prepare for a
plan for it and actually take action to
reduce the amount you spend
i’ve got some great tips for you today
i’m going to share those and give you a
little introduction
to my budgeting planner which you can
get free from my website
if you like the look at that i’ll drop
the link below you can go there
sign up and access that budget planner
today
so the first tip i’ve got for you is to
plan for everything
we do this sometimes when we’re just
budgeting for normal life during
christmas
it happens too so this is making sure
that
you plan for all of the costs associated
with christmas
it’s not just presents and food there’s
a whole lot of other stuff that goes
with christmas tea
so this can be things like traveling to
see family for the big day
this can include things like those
christmas cards that you send out a few
weeks before
or the wrapping paper or the fancy
ribbon that goes with swirly early
or maybe a new outfit to wear on the day
or for the work christmas party
there’s lots of other costs that are
associated with this time of year
and if we start thinking about them in
advance and plan for them
then we’re not left feeling out of
pocket in december or even november
we actually know that these things are
coming and we can
keep it under control and make sure we
don’t overspend
so go through think about all the
different things you do around christmas
do you meet up with more friends do you
have people over for dinner
do you meet up for drinks now this might
not be the same this year
but think about those zoom quizzes do
you want to have a bottle of you know
like
irish cream liqueur to drink when you’re
having a zoom
christmas quiz if so factor that into
the costs
i’m assuming you’re not sitting around
drinking these things normally so that
is
a seasonal expense the next one is to
know your budget know exactly what you
want to spend at christmas
and what you have available to spend the
last thing i want to see happen
is you go use all your money to pay for
christmas and then you don’t have the
money to pay for your bills
because that is the start of getting
into debt or getting into mortar
and christmas really isn’t worth it okay
we know it’s coming we need to plan for
it and budgeting is the way we do
that so you need to know your budget
it’s not okay to have rough figures in
your head
because we forget that well we forget
that we
bought our kids that other toy or we
forget that we haven’t
bought you know on margaret something
so we need to think about each of these
things and if we write them down it
means we don’t forget and we have some
sort of organization
so this is the main reason that i
created my christmas
budget planner and i’m going to talk you
through the
three different things that you have
access to
when you download this so the first page
is just a standard budget it’s really
simple
all of this is done in spreadsheet form
and you can just change the figures
there are some formulas in there
that will total things up so you know
exactly what you’re spending and you
don’t have to
work this out for yourself so have a
look i’ve put some of my
top categories there might be other
things that you do at christmas and you
can add those into
but in here you need to type what you
want to spend you might have a look at
what you spent last year and want to add
those in
but you need to get a rough idea of what
you want to spend this year
it’s okay to say i want to spend less
this year than i spent last year
or if your financial situation is
significantly improved
you might want to spend a bit more this
year that is absolutely fine just make
it realistic for you
and make it something you can actually
afford on the next page
you have a present list so this is where
you can just
listen to your family members an idea of
what you want to spend
or what you want to buy and then the
amount that you actually want to spend
on that
so you can just go through you might
have you know a couple of things you
want to buy from people
but it just gives you a way of
keeping this organized and having a
record of this i quite often will just
be randomly
messaging my family and say hey what do
you want
and then i will get to the point where
i’ve asked them they’ve told me
something i’ve completely forgotten
about it because i’ve not written it
down
see this can be a good place to organize
that it’s also a good place to keep some
rough ideas
of what you might need to spend so on
the first page where it says presents
you might have
any idea of what you’re gonna spend on
presents but when you break it down into
individuals and set a budget for each of
those people
it’s much easier to see what the total
is gonna be for
presents on this third page you have an
expenses tracker so this is just a way
of you organizing the amount of money
that you have going out
so every time you spend on something
christmas related you can type it in
here
select the category it falls into and
then the amount
and what happens is this spreadsheet
will automatically
pull through this figure so you can see
what you spent in each section
now you will then be able to compare
this to your budget but you can also use
this information for next year
when you’re formulating this budget
again you’ll be able to see those extra
totals and what you’ve spent
sometimes it can be the little things
that build up we don’t quite know so
like two
three four five pounds over here and
there but actually
those four or five pounds can quickly
end up into 100 pounds
um it’s those holes those leaks that
could actually ruin the whole thing and
sink the ship so it’s the same
so now that we draw from the budget
planner we can go with our tips so
the third one is to have some
conversations so
i think it’s really important around
christmas to just have some
conversations
i do this particularly with my friends
who’ve got kids
and we just sit there and check in and
say do we want to buy presents for the
kids this year
or do we want to leave it you know do we
think we’re going to see each other
is it worth buying them and actually
this really helps it means that i’m not
buying gifts
for people and then they’re feeling
awkward about needing to buy me a gift
it actually makes a lot of sense you can
decide
who’s on the christmas morning list and
who’s not and it’s also a good
opportunity to set some boundaries
what are we going to spend on each other
what’s reasonable and if you’re sitting
there and actually i don’t want anything
or there’s nothing for that price that
i’m particularly interested in
can you call it quits i’ve had
conversations like this with my family
where we’ve tried to reduce the cost and
this worked out really well
you still get the same excitement and
feeling around christmas
but you’re doing it knowing that
everybody has managed to stay in budget
some other ideas on this topic are could
you swap
everybody buying everybody a present for
maybe a secret santa system
this is great if you’ve got a family of
adults
or you just want to be able to do
something a bit fun
or a bit exciting you can do a big
center center with your family
or your friends and actually then
there’s only one person to buy you can
set a mutually agreeable budget for that
present
and it not only reduces the amount you
have to pay for
it also it reduces your stress for going
out and trying to get
presents for everybody you can just buy
a present for one person
i know that you’ll get a present back
too you can also have conversations
this is particularly important for me
now i’ve got kids is to have these
conversations around like
now we’ve got kids and they’re really
expensive do you really just want to do
presents for the kids
and just focus on them so this is
something that i’ve done
uh with family members but also friends
like we don’t need to buy each other
gifts anymore we’re grown-ups
we want something we’ll buy by ourselves
but do we want to just focus on making
sure that the kids have something nice
their kids have something from their
friends
and actually that’s a great way of
reducing cars and making sure that
everybody’s happy but it all starts with
having
a conversation number four is shop
around for gifts
i love my christmas shopping this year
is gonna be online thanks for the
situation in the uk at the moment
so why don’t you make sure that you are
shopping around that’s a good time
to visit websites and look for deals
there are some great websites available
to help you so some of my favorites are
carol campbell camel which is an amazon
price tracker
so you can type in the products that
you’re looking at
and you can track those prices see
whether they’re higher or lower than
they usually
are and you can make a decision about
whether you want to buy it based on that
information
so another great website is idling this
is a price comparison so if there’s a
particular product or item that you’re
after
you can type it in there and they will
compare and find in the best prices for
that particular product so use these
websites use this time
use the resources that are available on
the internet to shop around and get the
best prices
sometimes we will see offers and think
they’re the best one because it says
it’s an offer
that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the
best price out there
so look around before you commit to
buying number five
is talking about christmas dinner so
again
because of the situation in the uk we
might find ourselves actually all at
home cooking our own christmas dinners
this year
but as we know that’s not always the
case normally the responsibility for
cooking christmas dinner
falls on one or two members of your
family now this could be you or this
could be a parent or a sibling
or you know your children but there is
not really somebody that takes this job
on
for the sake of everybody else we might
all power around their house typically
my family go around my mum’s and she
will cook christmas dinner
yes we help out but normally we are
having a good time and she’s slaving
away
they’ve also taken on a lot of the cost
for the food and actually this is a huge
expense at christmas
so it’s perfectly reasonable as part of
your conversations that i recommended
you have
to talk about sharing the cost of
christmas dinner if you’re the sort of
person that
takes on that responsibility each year
it’s unreasonable to ask people to
contribute
towards that they’re going to be eating
that food christmas is not entirely your
responsibility
so why not ask them to chip in you could
also ask them to actually do part of the
cooking
so you could say how about you bring the
potatoes
you bring the vegetables my husband’s
family had this system and it was
absolutely brilliant and everybody
bought a different part
cooked that meal and it was a complete
family event
so this is something you could consider
doing just have these conversations
about
christmas dinner who’s gonna pay for it
how you can contribute
and come up with a system that actually
means that the burden of the christmas
food shopping doesn’t fall
on one person or one family and finally
number six is talking all about clothes
so we’d like to have nice shiny new
clothes or a nice
outfit and look good at christmas time
but actually there’s a huge cost
associated with that
so i’m urging you this christmas to
maybe think about wearing something
secondhand
maybe where you wore last year or maybe
just agree with everybody that’s
attending christmas with you
that it’s relaxed this year we’re going
to go over regardless
and we’re just going to be comfortable
so come up with some sort of system that
means
that you’re not having to spend out on
new fancy clothes
to look great this christmas you can
just wear your old clothes and still
look great
so have a little thing christmas
budgeting doesn’t need to cost you a
fortune
there are lots of things you can do i
have a button planner to help you out
go check that out you can download that
for free and don’t forget
like this video hit the subscribe and
give me a comment
has this christmas been more expensive
for you this year
or do you think it’s gonna cost less i
would love to know thank you for
[Music]
watching
“