As I was surfing the next last week on various websites of different financial institutions, I stumbled across this website. Your Money Counts.com is a public website from HSBC that discusses personal finances for the young adult.
The four categories on YourMoneyCounts.com are Money, Credit, Goals, and Planning. They are currently featuring an article titled “Holiday Finances 101” which discusses simple and basic tips to keep our finances from dropping into the red during the holiday season.
YourMoneyCounts.com advises us to first and foremost Have a Plan. In a nutshell this step advises us to make a list and check it twice. The list of expenses or a budget plan is the first step when planning our personal finances. A plan determines how much we have to spend which is the basis of every budget.
Before you head out to go shopping, or before you plan a personal budget, it is important to know what we have to purchase or who we need to buy gifts for. Making a list and checking it twice makes sure that we stay within our planned budget while shopping during the holidays.
Last week I was out on Friday evening December 17 (8 days before Christmas) and I couldn’t help but notice the lack of people out shopping in stores. I thought that the lack of Christmas shoppers on December 17 could be for one of three reasons…Maybe people have already completed their holiday shopping. If we start early and scatter our purchases we won’t be forced to spend so much money at the last minute. The second reason could be that people just don’t have the money this year to spend on Christmas gifts. Or, shoppers are avoiding the hassle of shopping in the snow, and they have decided to make all of their holiday purchases online.
Your Money Counts.com advises us to Practice Safe Shopping in the article Holiday Finance 101. I agree that shopping online is definitely hassle free. We can order all of our gifts online and have them delivered right to our door…or anybody’s door for that matter. If we choose to shop online during the holidays, it is important to make sure that we use secure websites. We also need to ensure that we use a secure payment method such as PayPal or Interac Online, for our Canadian DINKS.
If you are like me, you enjoy the entire ambiance of holiday shopping. I will go outside and face the cold to make all of my holiday purchases. I can bare the cold as long as I have a Starbucks Hot Chocolate in my hand. If you do go out and do your holiday shopping “in person” please make sure that your wallet and your credit cards are safe.
Our wallets should be safely tucked away in a purse that zips up. Male DINKS please don’t leave your wallet in your back pocket…you are asking for trouble. As an alternative, we can keep our wallet in the inside pocket of our jacket. Do not only bring your credit card with you while shopping during the holidays. It is easier to lose just a credit card, than it is to lose our whole wallet or purse.
DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) Finance is a blog discussing personal finance for couples. While by no means financial experts, we own a variety of assets including real estate and stocks. We've both been up to our eyeballs in debt and have made tons of financial mistakes. However, we've both successfully retired that debt and we both do learn from our failings. We hope that our voice in this blog can help others in achieving their goals!
