Little Ways to Stash Away Next Years Christmas Cash

Do the holidays leave you broke until May? Does it seem that the price of "the THING" that your special someone wants, is always just a hair more than you have? For years I have watched people spending money willy nilly that they don't have, often putting Christmas on their credit cards, and paying off Christmas sometime in June or July. I think that it is time that we take the need for a stash of Christmas cash not just seriously but creatively. There are a lot of ways that you can help defray the cost of Christmas. The key is starting early! Start right after the new year with "Operation Christmas Cash". These are 4 simple ways to keep Old Saint Nick from breaking you next year.

1. Recycling

If you recycle your cans, bottles, newspapers and other post consumer products, instead of just pocketing a little extra pocket change take that money and keep it in a jar or envelope. Each time that you go in to recycle your cans and bottles you'll see the amount rising and your future holiday stress falling!

2. Survey and meta reward sites.

We see them online all the time, stories of people making $100 -$350 per hour filling out surveys. I've been doing surveys with a few survey sites for several years now, and I can tell you, it has not been my personal experience to make more than a $100-$150 from any one survey site in six months to a year of answering surveys. There are meta-reward sites where you can make a good amount of money throughout the year for signing up for trial offers, and $1 for your first month subscription services. You can indeed make a lot of money on meta reward sites if you keep track of all of your subscriptions and when they are set to expire on a digital calendar program. If you are not careful though, those auto renewal stipulations in the sign up information, can cost you much more than you will make from the meta reward site.

For taking advantage of meta reward sites you must do more than sign up for trial off and products and then remember to cancel them in time. You must make sure that you read all of the terms and conditions and that you do not fall out of compliance with the rules of the site. Before joining a meta rewards site ensure that you're familiar with the requirements for meeting their participation standards, because if you fall out of compliance you won't get paid. Ensure that the minimum cash out amount is "do-able" by checking out the offers that they have on the site and adding up the ones that you intend to take advantage of. Try to stick to goods, services, and subscriptions of products that you are truly interested in so that you are benefiting from the trials and products.

Most meta reward sites pay via either paypal or by check mailed to your home. If they offer either of these methods or a choice of either or. Choose to use the payment processor. You get your payment a lot faster. Your paypal account is separate from your bank account or main source of funds so it is easy to keep track of. (some payment processors like paypal now offer interest payments on any balance that you maintain in your account now, which means that the money you make is making you more money throughout the year!) If you can avoid cashing the funds in through the entire year you will have several hundred dollars at least in your account by December. You can then have a check mailed to you for the amount or you may go online and spend the money directly from the payment account. I normally spend less than $20.00 total is S&h fees, $1 trials, and such on my two meta rewards sites and I normally cash in between $75 - $160 dollars every two months from each meta-reward site. That is between $825 and $1760 in eleven months. That is certainly enough to help defray the costs associated with Christmas. If you do survey sites also and have them pay out to the same processor you will see that stash growing even larger. You may find that you can afford a nice birthday present or two for someone special during the year and then a very merry, and sane holiday. When you save just a little money throughout the year, or earn a little here and a little there from online programs, you would be surprised how quickly it all adds up.

3. Coins/Pocket change

Everyone has that coin jar at home. The one where you throw all the change that you find floating at the bottom of a purse or pocket at the end of the day. Normally from the transactions of the day there is actually more than $1 there. Try rounding up whenever you break a bill. (the same as pretending that you don't ever have exact change and breaking a bill each time you spend money at the dry cleaners, on lunch, or snacks even.) Many people keep these jars for their children, so that the children can learn the value of saving up money. However if you intentionally accumulate change throughout the day fifty cents at the quickie mart, ninety-one cents at the dollar store, a quarter from the fast food joint or coffee house that you stop at for breakfast or for lunch, you will find that it normally totals a dollar or more at the end of the day. That is a simple math equation $1 times 365 days = $365.00.

4. Metered saving

There is also metered saving. If you take one dollar out of your pocket every day and put it away somewhere, for the entire year, at the end of the year you will have yes, $365.00. If instead you were to put away$2 per day all year, that would be $730. If you put aside $10 per week, just take it out of your pocket as soon as you cash your check so that you didn't even notice it, at the end of the year $10 time 52 weeks per year= $520. What if you put away $20 per week all year long? That is $1040 at the end of the year. You could buy some very nice Christmas gifts with that, couldn't you? Or at least defray the cost of a very, very nice Christmas.

The key to these four plans is incremental increase of your savings. Whether it is every day that you tuck a certain amount away, or by the week, or even by the coin, incremental saving insures that you save little bits of cash. Not enough money by itself to matter. However when you add it all up at the end of the year, it comes to a nice chunk of change to spend on whatever, whenever. You may even end up with some left over after the holidays instead of having left over bills.