DON’T GO BROKE FOR THE HOLIDAYS
4 Steps to Creating a Christmas Budget
Shop for Christmas on a budget.
Before you head to the mall or add items to your shopping cart online, you want to ensure you have enough money to cover your monthly expenses and buy your loved ones Christmas presents. You may feel overwhelmed about your finances and how you will manage to buy gifts. But if you create a Christmas budget, you won’t break the bank!
1. Look at last-minute sales: Tons of retailers will offer holiday sales as we get closer to Christmas. So be on the lookout for stores that mark prices down as St. Nick prepares for his journey. 2. Recycle gift cards: If you received a gift card to a store that you never used (or forgot about), re-gift it this year! Just be sure the card hasn’t expired. 3. Go thrifting: You can find great gifts at your local thrift store. Depending on where you go, you can get clothes, books, silverware, furniture, gadgets, and more. Christmas shopping can be stressful, but by creating a budget and sticking to it, you will survive this holiday season like a pro.
How do you create a Christmas budget?
1. Write down your monthly income: The first thing you want to do is tally up how much money you bring in each month. This lets you know how much money you have before you take out your expenses. 2. Write down your monthly expenses: You want to tally up the total amount of regular monthly costs, including housing, utilities, groceries, and internet. This also includes cars, credit cards, insurance, and other monthly payments. Be sure to add any streaming or subscription fees to this total. 3. Find out how much money you have left over: Subtract your total expenses from your monthly income. The number you get will be the money you have left over for discretionary spending, such as dinner out, a concert, or Christmas presents. But make sure you leave some wiggle room for any unexpected costs. 4. Plan out how much you want to spend on Christmas gifts: Write out whom you want to get gifts for and how much you want to spend. Track your spending as you go to ensure you don’t overspend or forget to buy someone a gift.
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what they wanted. And the really important part of this was they talked to me and my sisters about this, so we knew, we understood what they wanted and why they wanted it. So that brings us to the other part, I think, of the issue. You guys are the ones to ask about the legal forms, and you can definitely help people lay out what they want and make sure that it has a good chance of being done legally. But I think the conversation with your family members is just so, so important. And I hope that people will start to do that a little bit more. Chasity Stratton: I could not agree more. I think the legal documents are obviously an incredibly important aspect of planning, but part of that is having that hard conversation. And so often parents don’t want to sit down and talk to their kids about it because it’s difficult. And, you know, oftentimes the family’s only together over the holidays, and they don’t want to ruin the holidays by talking about it. But I will tell you, being able to pull up that conversation with Mom and Dad and go, “No wait, Mom really did say yes, she had the form that says this, but she also told me she does not want life support under these circumstances.” Just gives your family that peace to be able to say it’s okay to let somebody go.
Another form that I’m sure you guys see in probably the clinical aspect is, of course, a do not resuscitate order or DNR. We have questions about this all the time from clients. I only mention it because when we’re talking about advanced directives, clients do ask us about DNRs. I want to make sure that it’s very clear that, first of all, the DNR is a medical form. You can only get it through your doctor’s office or through your hospital, and it talks about whether or not you want to be resuscitated. We do not provide those to clients, but certainly if that’s something that’s important to you, you need to talk to your doctor about getting that in place. And there are certain rules about where it should be displayed and who should have access to it. Obviously, ask those important questions if that’s something that you feel like you are interested in pursuing. Kay Lawrence: Absolutely that helps to clear up that one particular situation and then, you know, consult a good attorney about all of those gray areas in between. And very importantly, have conversations with your family. Chasity Stratton: That’s right. If you have any questions about advanced directives, health care powers of attorney, living wills, or just estate planning in general, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
2 • www.strattonreynolds.com
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