Ways to save during Christmas & Other Holidays!
Saving
is very important in life. To meet unseen contingencies and emergency needs,
you need to save. In addition, regular saving habits help to accumulate a larger
amount of money. You can use that to purchase something big that you are in
need of. Increases in saving also means an increase in living standards.
Holidays
are meant for spending. In fact, holidays have become synonymous as spending
days. You go out during holidays and it automatically compels you to spend on
things like travelling expenses, food, shopping, watching movies and others.
Follow the guidelines below to save during holidays, especially focusing on
Christmas day.
- Reduce unwanted expenses
Christmas
seems to be the festival of lights. Candles and electric lights are used beyond
the limit of requirement. For instance, if you have decided to use 20 candles
and 40 electric lights with 4 Christmas trees, you can reduce it to less than
half of that number. Decide how much to reduce costs for unwanted quantities. Other
unnecessary expenses may be drinking coffee several times a day. Of course, bad
health habits such as smoking, drinking and nights out also cause unnecessary
expenditures. It is better and cheaper to eat at home. Now, calculate the amount
of potential savings after cutting out all these unnecessary expenses. You will
find a huge amount as your savings.
- Allocate budget
Unless
you calculate and maintain records of your savings and expenses, you can’t
determine the right amount to save. Allocate in your budget how much to save, how
much to spend and which items to spend your money on. Use past budget data to
provide you with information to take corrective action. Eliminating unnecessary
expenses helps a lot in saving. Also store the current budget idea for future
reference on your computer. Take necessary steps, if you exceed the budget
limit.
- Stop expenditure competition
If
you have noticed, Christmas day is taken as expenditure competition day. The
one who spends the most is supposed to be the one celebrating in the best way.
This is not the truth and Christmas celebrations are not a showoff competition.
Spend within the limits of your budget. Don’t compare expenses with friends, neighbors
or others. Use cost effective ideas for holidays and Christmas day.
- Buy useful things
Buying
clothes, shoes or toys, if you already have enough is not a good thing. Gift
what the person is in need of and then the presents you give will be not be
worthless. Suppose, if they lost their watch, then they might be intending to
get new one. So in this case gifting a watch can help fulfill the person’s need
and want. Likewise, present the things that the person is in need of.
- Make gift yourself
If
you are thinking of buying the biggest card to gift this Christmas, you should
think again. You can learn to make cards, baskets or other gift items by yourself.
Use your holidays to learn how to make handicrafts in your spare time. Start
making gifts by yourself and you can save a huge amount money in this way.
- Substitute expensive with reasonable price products
Buying
expensive things doesn’t mean that you are buying the best product. Price
depends on the profit margins of the seller and nature of business. Get an idea
and the knowledge where to buy quality products at affordable prices. Also, today’s
competition has reached a cut-throat level. Thus the market is overcrowded with
unlimited products. You can select the best products in terms of price and need.
- Don’t buy low quality products:
In
the name of saving, don’t buy things only because you can get it at the lowest cost. Some people
when offered low price may buy things that they may not need at all. Keep in
mind that low quality is far more expensive than high quality product. For example,
you bought a dress for $10 and after wearing it for few weeks it started
getting torn or in condition that it can’t be used anymore. What’s the use? You
will need to get another new one. Things must be quite durable and long-lasting.
I asked one of my
friends, “How can I save money during holidays?” The reply was very funny. “Ohm,
just put it in bank and don’t spend it.” Saving doesn’t necessarily mean
not spending at all. However, we can save by limiting our spending with budget control. In other words, you need to allocate your
budget with how much you want to save and how much you want to spend.
Only saving in a bank
doesn’t mean that you have made efficient and effective use of your money. For
instance, you spend $5 for 10 candles. Considering the time value of money,
after a year you can buy same candles at $8 per candle. In the same way prices
of other products also increases. The interest paid by bank is only the
compensation of the depreciated value of money in terms of changes in market
interest rates and inflation. What I mean is invest your saved money in real
estate.
Following the above guidelines,
you can save more than 4-5 digits of income. The big question here is will my
saving be enough to invest in real estate? Share you saving ideas with others
to help others to save too. The collection of savings of friends, employees, neighbors,
family members and relatives can create pool of funds big enough to invest. In this
case, your saving may appreciate much more than saving in a bank. If everybody
starts saving and using this idea, this will have positive impact in the real estate
sector as demand will increase with appreciation in prices.
Happy Christmas day in
advance. Happy saving and happy investing.
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