Stop Overspending at Christmas: How to Avoid a Budget Blow Out This Christmas

Overspending at Christmas is one of the biggest Recurring Budget Pitfalls. Here's how you can avoid a budget blow out this December. Spending on all those Christmas gifts bring on big debts and big guilt. Christmas is supposed to be a blessed time of year, but it often turns into a recurring financial nightmare for many families.

My #1 rule of Christmas finance:

If you are still paying off last year's Christmas credit card debts by the time Christmas rolls around again, you are definitely overspending.

Here are ten financially feasible alternatives to spending too much on Christmas:

1. Budget. Think about how much you can realistically spend, and make a plan you can stick to, before the money starts flowing out of your budget.

2. Instead of giving individual presents, which can set you back hundreds of dollars depending on the size of your extended family, have a family party. Everyone can bring a favorite food dish or sweets, then have a circle of Storytelling, to share your funny and harrowing stories from the year gone past.

3. Have a sing-a-long together.

4. Help the children of the families present a play to the rest of the family; each child can dramatize a tale of the past year's adventures or a family anecdote. Watching these little dramas will bring you together as a group. This is the time of year to share a part of your life that your other family members may have missed, or just to catch up on the latest family news.

5. Instead of presents, give each other IOU's for favors, like baby-sitting, gardening, a massage, a facial, or offer to cook a meal. Share whatever your special talent may be.

6. If there is no other alternative to gifts, at least set a dollar limit on the gifts, to keep spending down to a dull roar.

7. Make homemade gifts with the kids. Find a local craft store offering classes on how to make individual gifts that are easy to make, and cost effective.

8. Learn about how other people lived during Christmas. Pretend you are living at the turn of the century. You can use more candlelight, build a fire in the fireplace, and make Christmas ornaments as gifts. Add a nostalgic tone with evenings playing board games and popping popcorn.

9. Donate the money you would have spent on a charitable organization for those less fortunate at Christmastime.

10. Give the gift of health! If time permits, offer to become an exercise buddy, and take walks together, or go on a bicycle ride. This is a gift that will help you both, and lasts all year round!