Christmas.... Now??

Okay, you want to have money at Christmas and not be paying off credit cards till June..... SAVE and start saving now.

• Take out $25 a month, by Christmas you will have $250.  And that's $250 more then you would have had.  Decide on a base amount, then if you can add an extra $10 or $25 to that each month, your amount will obviously increase.  
• The easiest way for me to do this is I do my banking online.  On my online banking I set up a transfer that happens each month to an account that I titled, DON'T TOUCH!  That way I don't need to worry about making sure the money is being put aside because its done each  month automatically.  And if you don't do online banking or are unable to do a transfer like this, just go into the bank and they will set it up for you.
• If you are going to do cash at home, decide on a good place to put it.  In a jar that can't be opened or in a safe.  You don't want to be dishing this money early!
• Another way is if you do the budget cash jar system, which I explain in"How To Start Saving", and are putting that $25 away into a jar for the kids already, plan on using that money for only Christmas presents for the kids or for their birthdays.  I know we will use the money for our sons b-day in April and then put money in there each month to use it again for Dec for Christmas.