Super Nerd Girl here again.....
Ok, so calling it an Autopsy is not very festive or cheerful.
So call it "The Post where I talk about what I was Going to Spend for Christmas and what I Actually Spent for Christmas".
We budgeted $1000 for Christmas spending.
$1000 in money we HAD already, so no putting Christmas spending on Credit Cards to pay off in June or January 2012.lol
Here is where the funds were allocated at the start.....
Traveling to visit with Family. $300
Sending a few Holiday Cards. $10.80
Shopping for and exchanging gifts with family. $400
Cooking Christmas dinner. $30
Charity. $100
Baking cookies and pies. $20
Christmas Tree. $5
A Christmas eve meal and show or movie. $125
And here is where the money actually went.....
Traveling to visit with Family. $0
Sending a few Holiday Cards. $4.40
Shopping for and exchanging gifts with family. $695.89
Cooking Christmas dinner. $0
Charity. $100
Baking cookies and pies. $0
Christmas Tree. $5
A Christmas eve meal and show or movie. $76.35 including tips
Here are the Spending Details....
$0 *Traveling to visit with Family----
The travel plans didn't work out so we didn't spend on this. Not being able to visit however did mean we had more shipping costs to get the gifts we were bringing with us to their destination. Shipping were put under the Gifts heading.
$4.40 *Sending a few Holiday Cards----
We sent out 13 cards. 10 were mailed and the others were hand-delivered or put inside of mailed gift packages so no stamps needed.
$695.89 *Shopping for and exchanging gifts with family----
WOW! Ok, so $300 of this figure was the $100 cash we give each kid, so $395.89 was spent on gifts and shipping. This does NOT include what Hubs spent on my gifts.
I kept an itemized list of who got what and how much it cost. I about blew a gasket when I saw how much it all added up to! You don't think you are spending, even if you are frugal, but boy oh boy!!!
Keep in mind that this spending number doesn't include the $200 in FREE Gift Cards I obtained from my credit card points program that I gave as gifts.
Looking back over the items, the least frugal thing has to be the Stocking Stuffers! Even though I got most of mine this year for free at Rite-Aid, after using +Up Rewards and free Rite-Aid gift card to pay, those little "filler" type items will kill your budget!
$0 *Cooking Christmas dinner----
I didn't buy any extravagant meat or other gourmet type food. My usual monthly grocery spending covered the Holiday meal.
$100 *Charity----
I didn't involve the kids in a charity activity this year. There was just nothing I could find that worked out with their school/work schedules so I just gave cash to a local Holiday charity organization.
$0 *Baking cookies and pies----
Again I was able to cover ingredients in the monthly food budget for December. Everything but the pecans I had to buy was already procured before the month began using previous month's food funds.
$5 *Christmas Tree----
Hubs strung 2 strings of lights outside and lit the Wreath on the door. They were only up 2 full weeks and lit for a few hours each night.
$76.35 *A Christmas eve meal and show or movie----
We didn't have any extended family come this year so it was a smaller bill.
And the grand total we spent for Christmas 2010?
$881.64
$118.36 UNDER Budget!
Yay us.....
So looking forward to Christmas 2011 for me--
*I'm basically happy with what I ended up spending, though next year I may redistribute the amounts spent in individual categories.
*We spend way too much on gifts, even if they are money or non-stuff gifts.
*We need to be more actively involved with the charitable spending, not just throwing a check at some group.
If you kept track of your spending for Christmas, how did you do?
Did you spend more. less or right about what you planned on spending?
Did you have any money epiphanies(epiphany? epiphani?)when you looked back at the Holiday plan?
Do you see anything you'll change about your spending for Christmas 2011?
Leave a comment and let us know how ya did and what you learned about yourself & money this year!!
Sluggy
