Submitted By: Jon Freeman
We are now approaching the holiday season. Halloween has come and gone, and we are quickly headed for Thanksgiving. Soon people will be busy purchasing gifts for friends and loved ones (if you haven’t already started). However, I am always curious to know how many people actually budgeted for all of the things they will end up buying before the year is done. Will some of the folks who we see buying gifts at the mall be upset when the holidays are over and have to pay their credit card bills? Will people be sad when they take a look at their bank statement at the end of December and think about all of the money they spent? My guess is that this year a few people will be in that situation. To keep you from experiencing post holiday blues over the cash you spent and charges you racked up during the holidays you may want to try having a budget for things. For example, before you go out holiday shopping budget how much money you should spend on gifts. If you want to you can break it down by person, and assign a specific dollar amount that you will not exceed per gift for individuals. Deciding how much that specific amount should be is up to you, but for more information about budgeting and the topic of personal finance feel free to check out Personal Finance for Dummies, or you could visit the one of the Gwinnett Library’s free online personal finance resources: Consumer Ed.