For the more money-savvy of us, Christmas is just around the corner. At least, this is the way of thinking in order to get you motivated enough to start saving and/or buying ahead of the time. It’s definitely something to consider, especially if you are always left just that little bit short come December. But how do we go about effectively saving now?
Pay Off Loans
One way to make sure that you have enough money for the festive holidays is to ensure that you are paying off anything that you currently owe. If you are tied into a finance deal, a good way to get out of it which is cheaper for you (thus giving you more money to spend at the end of it!) is to look for the best credit card deal you can find and use that to get out of it. It may seem like a strange thing to do - battling finance with more finance - but if you are paying off an APR percentage with your finance deal but get your credit card on a 0% rate, it’s better to use this offer in order to bring your total cost down. That way, you’re not paying out more than you need to and can save the difference. Instead of taking out credit cards and loans in order to pay for Christmas gifts, it’s better that they are put to an alternative and more helpful use; this is definitely something where you will be able to see the benefit past Boxing Day.
Make Use Of Offers
Amazon have just celebrated their Prime Day deals, with top brands selling for up to half of what they’re actually worth. However, this doesn’t mean that the deals stop here. In fact, it’s quite the opposite; we have a lot of sales coming up online before Christmas hits. Black Friday is at the end of November, which sees hundreds and thousands of items dropping down in price, just waiting to be snatched up by those who can put them to use as Christmas gifts. Check out your local store in the meantime for any end-of-summer sales they may be having; although you will generally be getting the items that didn’t sell over the warmer season on offer, there are some gems that can be found amongst them if you look hard enough. Keep watch on sites like Wowcher and Groupon for any other flash deals.
Follow A Saving Chart
If you’re not sure of exactly how much you should be saving each week, it’s advisable that you follow a chart in order to get your finances into gear. There are sites online that can steer you in the right direction towards keeping your money under wraps, although it’s simple enough to make one yourself. There are certain challenges that you can join if you are part of money saving Facebook groups, such as putting away an amount and doubling it each week on the run up to Christmas. This can leave you short of money as we go further into the winter months, so you will need to know how to effectively budget.
I agree with you that you need to keep an eye on the budget and have a financial cushion for a rainy day. I liked that you talked about your method. I also keep my money in different places and prefer it to work, so even that 50% of the income that I save in the bank goes to a deposit account and earns me interest in santander uk. Yesterday I had a problem with logging into the bank application and I had to call the customer service, whose contacts I found on https://santander-uk.pissedconsumer.com/customer-service.html and asked to restore access to the account. It turned out that my settings in the phone itself were wrong and the problem was not in the bank service.
ReplyDelete