Coping after Christmas

17 January 2012

Coping after Christmas

Now that Christmas is over, it’s time to run and hide from your bills, right?

It’s probably harder to stick to your budget during the Christmas holidays than any other time of the year. It doesn’t even need to feel like a big Christmas to blow the budget. Often you’ve had visitors or your family has travelled, you’ve spent more on food and drinks than usual, and been out to costly family activities together. These expenses can build up more quickly than you realise. And that’s without the cost of presents for everyone.

New Zealand Federation of Family Budgeting Services CEO Raewyn Fox says that Christmas can have a large impact your budget. “Now that Christmas is over, the damage may well be done. If you have any outstanding bills from the Christmas period, get on to paying them as soon as possible.”

“This is a good time to learn a lesson, though,” Mrs Fox says. “If this Christmas was difficult to cope with financially, do some planning for Christmas 2012 right now. A simple solution is to put aside a small amount each week, starting now. If you put aside $10 a week now into a savings account, you’d have over $400 by the time you need to do your Christmas shopping. That $400 could go a long way.”

“However most of the clients our budgeting services see would struggle to find $10 a week, every week. We saw over 41,000 clients last year and the average debt was around $25,000, so their priority was repaying these debts as quickly as possible. For many of our clients, Christmas is a small event by necessity.”

Raewyn has a few tips for ensuring your next Christmas does not blow your budget:

• Check your bank statements and receipts to add up what this Christmas has cost. This way you know what you’ll need to have available for next year.
• If possible, put aside a small amount each week into a Christmas savings account. Don’t touch this until you do your Christmas shopping.
• Plan early to take advantage of sales. If you know what you’re getting someone for Christmas, you can keep an eye out for when that item comes on sale. It’s possible to save a lot of money by shopping this way.
• Visit a budget adviser to ensure your budget is realistic. You can find your nearest budgeting service by visiting www.familybudgeting.org.nz or calling 0508 BUDGETLINE (283 438).

The New Zealand Federation of Family Budgeting Services is a network of community budgeting services offering free, confidential, non-judgemental budgeting advice.

About the NZFFBS Inc

The NZFFBS Inc is a collective of community organisations that share a common code of ethics, philosophy, and commitment to delivering quality, free budgeting advice to families/whanau and individuals. The current membership comprises 150 budget services throughout New Zealand that employ over 1500 predominantly volunteer staff, who work with over 41,000 clients each year. For free budgeting advice call 0508 BUDGETLINE (283 438).

ENDS

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