Trying to save at Christmas time. Is that an oxymoron?
We may or may not soon be house poor, at least for a while but I figure when is the best time to have that experience if not when you are young and just married? Doesn't everyone have a tale about just starting out with their spouse and what they had to suffer through? I am sure Jose and I will have a similar story and it is certainly not that I think we will have it as bad as some people. We are still living fairly comfortably but we are going to have to be more conscious of our finances and where our money is going. We are trying to plan for the future. Gasp. In that spirit we are going to be having Christmas on a budget this year (since a lot of our cash flow will be going out in the form of a new apartment, furniture, paint etc., a sacrifice we are more than willing to make).
First of all I think Christmas spending can tend to get out of control and we don't even have kids yet. It is our first Christmas being married, we won't be going to visit the family in Michigan, shopping is tempting and fun. These are all reasons why we are making a game plan early. Hopefully this will set the tone for the future as well. We have decided on a strict budget for gifting this year with a limit set on how much we can spend on each other. We have agreed on pain of death not to go over that amount and have given each other a list of our wants. It is going to be interesting to see if we actually make it to Christmas to open the gifts or if we will be like my sister and brother-in-law who always open things early.
One thing my mom implemented when we were younger was the 3 gift rule. Her reasoning (which she attributes to Kathy Lee Gifford, I believe) was that the baby Jesus only received 3 things. Why should we be any different? I tend to agree with her and will use the same reasoning when Jose and I have kids. It really forces you to think about what you want/need when you have to choose just a few things. This kind of shopping also takes some of the stress out of gift-giving. We might not be following this rule this year but probably will in the future.
Here in Spain people celebrate more the coming of the 3 wisemen, 3 kings, 3 reyes magos (whatever you want to call them) instead of having Santa Claus. He is becoming more popular as time goes on and cultures mix but kids still wait for January 6th to receive most of their presents. This creates a somewhat complicated situation for us since I LOVE Santa (who doesn´t appreciate a guy who can get that much work done in one night and survives living in such cold weather with just little people and reindeer for company?). I am not sure how we will reconcile this difference in our future. Which will be the bigger gift giving day? Obviously it cannot be both. That would be too expensive.
All I know is that Santa had better not get lost trying to find me here in Spain this year. I will be waking up bright and early on the 25th to open my presents. I have been REALLY good this year ; )
First of all I think Christmas spending can tend to get out of control and we don't even have kids yet. It is our first Christmas being married, we won't be going to visit the family in Michigan, shopping is tempting and fun. These are all reasons why we are making a game plan early. Hopefully this will set the tone for the future as well. We have decided on a strict budget for gifting this year with a limit set on how much we can spend on each other. We have agreed on pain of death not to go over that amount and have given each other a list of our wants. It is going to be interesting to see if we actually make it to Christmas to open the gifts or if we will be like my sister and brother-in-law who always open things early.
One thing my mom implemented when we were younger was the 3 gift rule. Her reasoning (which she attributes to Kathy Lee Gifford, I believe) was that the baby Jesus only received 3 things. Why should we be any different? I tend to agree with her and will use the same reasoning when Jose and I have kids. It really forces you to think about what you want/need when you have to choose just a few things. This kind of shopping also takes some of the stress out of gift-giving. We might not be following this rule this year but probably will in the future.
Here in Spain people celebrate more the coming of the 3 wisemen, 3 kings, 3 reyes magos (whatever you want to call them) instead of having Santa Claus. He is becoming more popular as time goes on and cultures mix but kids still wait for January 6th to receive most of their presents. This creates a somewhat complicated situation for us since I LOVE Santa (who doesn´t appreciate a guy who can get that much work done in one night and survives living in such cold weather with just little people and reindeer for company?). I am not sure how we will reconcile this difference in our future. Which will be the bigger gift giving day? Obviously it cannot be both. That would be too expensive.
All I know is that Santa had better not get lost trying to find me here in Spain this year. I will be waking up bright and early on the 25th to open my presents. I have been REALLY good this year ; )
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