“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

“