Setting a Holiday Spending Budget

This post was sponsored, and paid for, by SunTrust. All opinions are my own.

I know it's a few months until the holiday season, but the time of year is just right around the corner. It can be so easy to overspend on the holidays and get stressed out by everything that is going on.

SunTrust wants to help you start your planning now so that you can focus on the holidays when they actually come. So many people do not have a plan for holiday spending, and that can lead to a huge disaster such as credit card debt, loans being taken out, and so on.

Here’s a challenge that I want to share with you today.

You can start your holiday planning by using the SunTrust budget worksheet to prepare for the quickly approaching holiday season.

This budgeting spreadsheet includes everything from gas for travel, holiday decor, and charitable donations.

You can download this free budget spreadsheet along with a couple of others!

I downloaded the free budget worksheet myself and it is great. There are three budgets in this download: 1) Your Main Budget; 2) Your Holiday Budget; and 3) Gifting Guide. All three of these together will help you to best budget throughout the year, including the holidays.

For us, we really don't spend too much on actual gifts, but holiday travel is definitely what gets us. Since we travel full-time, we tend to travel back for the holidays and that can add up quite quickly!

My top tips for holiday spending:

1. Create a budget. Before you make a list of all the things you want to buy for the holidays, you should set a realistic holiday budget. This will help you analyze your holiday spending so that you can spend less money and not go into any holiday debt. I recommend seeing how much money you already have set aside for the holidays, analyze how much you think you will spend, and figure out what you need to do so that you don't go over your spending budget.
2. Find ways to make extra money. If you can't find ways to cut back, then you may want to find ways to make more money. This can make the holiday season a little more enjoyable as you won't have to go into debt or use your savings in order to purchase holiday gifts.

SunTrust has a great budget worksheet that I recommend downloading. Please click here to check it out.

After you've downloaded this free tool, come back to the comment section below and describe what you’ve budgeted for by sharing your spreadsheet. Based on this budget, how are you prioritizing your spending for the upcoming holiday season?