Sunday, December 15, 2013

Our Last Christmas

...in debt. What a great thought! We are making this Christmas special although it's on a limited budget. We know that within a few months we will be debt-free and have decided to cut our spending now so we can make it to that goal sooner. Here are a few things that we did to keep our Christmas spending under control.

1. Make a budget and stick to it!!
In true Dave Ramsey fashion, we spent every Christmas dollar on paper before we spent it in real life. Chris and I sat down together and decided on how much we would spend on each other and how much we would spend on our extended family and friends. We also decided what we were going to buy before we went shopping. It was a great way to focus our spending and not buy things that weren't on the list!!

2. Get creative!
We looked for items on our Christmas list to go on sale. Because we knew exactly what we wanted to buy, we didn't have to buy unnecessary sale items- just the ones we had already budgeted for. 

We made gifts too! We made stovetop potpourri and cookies for our neighbors. We also made cookie jars and ornaments. We bought 30 yards of kraft paper for $5 to wrap presents. All these ideas and more came from…you guessed it -- Pinterest. 

I also did a "make and take" Christmas with 3 of my friends. Each of us picked a craft of some type and bought all the supplies for all 4 of us to make it. After that night, we walked away with some amazing quality time together and 4 handmade Christmas presents. I don't think any of us spent more than $15 total!


3. Practice Gratitude 
We have had such a thankful, stressless Christmas season so far because we are trying to keep our thoughts on how blessed we are. It's a choice, we aren't thankful naturally. We often jump to our default emotion of selfishness. It's a daily effort to change our thinking to being thankful for the ultimate gift of Jesus and how our giving should be a reflection of His gift.



4. Give More
The people we know have plenty…we have plenty. We don't need to keep adding more and more to our stockpile of stuff. We made sure to also budget money to spend on people who don't have plenty. We included Ethan in this practice too. He helped us pick out a gift to give to a child we don't know. We know this child is 18 months old and at that age, Ethan played endlessly with a drum that had shakers, a tambourine, bells, etc. We picked it out and Ethan was so excited about it. It did take a while for it to sink in that the drum wasn't for him though!! We found other reasons to give our money to people who are struggling to survive right now. We pray that they find the other side of the wilderness that they are in because they have found Jesus to lead them through. 

Merry Christmas!! 


2013 YTD Debt Pay-Off: $16,822.65

Total Debt Pay-Off: $54,822.65

Amount Left: $6,486.52


2 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for this post Teresa! I really needed to read it this morning. :) Have a good week.

    Racheal
    http://runningwithracheal.com

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    1. Thanks for stopping by Racheal! Happy New Year! See ya this weekend!

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