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Caroline Vencil

Live Fully, Budget Fiercely

Save More of Your Money This Christmas

by 1 Comment This post may contain affiliate links.

Save More of Your Money This Christmas – The best ways to save money this Christmas holiday season. There are ways to save money doing the same things you usually do.

There’s no way that I’m going to put myself in debt over Christmas. Period.

Each year around this time, I get hundreds of emails asking how to avoid going into debt at Christmas time. Like these:

“HELP!!! We’re doing really well at paying down our debt and now with Christmas, I don’t think I can afford anything without a credit card!”

“How do you pay for Christmas presents for your whole family? I don’t see how it can be done without debt.”

“I really need to know how to make Christmas presents work in my budget. We’ve tried to avoid debt, but our budget is too tight this year.”

The stress of the holidays, the pressure of getting things for people who you might not even know well, the pressure to cook gourmet meals for every party, the social pressure of the Christmas morning pictures with the mountains of presents… it’s a lot to take – especially if you’re struggling with finances!

If there is any consolation, you are NOT alone! The holidays are one of the hardest times of year to stay on budget – there’s no question about that.

Between parties, gifts for everyone that you know (neighbors, teachers, friends, coworkers, bosses, kids, kids’ friends, the entire staff at your kids’ schools, spouses, the bus driver, the mailman, and everyone in between!!), and all of the extra shopping for the parties, it is HARD to avoid blowing your whole budget in a day!

Thankfully, you’ve got a super cheapskate here to help you!

More saving money tips and tricks:

There are a few ways that you can avoid debt at Christmas:

SAVE when you shop:

Ibotta

With all of the extra grocery shopping that you will do in the next few months, you’ve got to start using Ibotta. Ibotta helps you keep more of your money this Christmas by giving you cashback when you shop at basically every store. It’s like couponing but easier – and they give you your cashback in the form of gift cards or even Paypal money!

You can also use Ibotta when you shop on Amazon, which is really great to save when you shop online!

You can get $10 welcome bonus right here!

Ebates

Speaking of saving when you shop online – if you plan on doing any online shopping at all, you need to get Ebates and make sure to get that cashback! If you want to keep more of your money this Christmas, you NEED to start using Ebates

I know that with Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming up, they are offering some amazing double cashback deals on places like Target, Walmart, Kohls, and more.

Get a $10 welcome bonus when you sign up!

Amazon Prime

Amazon Prime is amazing around the holidays because of their free 2-day shipping, but they even have free 1-day shipping on some items. This is great when you remember on Wednesday that you have another party to go to on Saturday and forgot the gift… but don’t want to brave the store and fight the holiday crowds!

True story: if you realize on December 22nd that you forgot to get your child the present that they asked for, you can still get it to your house in time to wrap and get under the tree. (First-hand experience – they really do deliver in the nick of time!)

You get a free 30-day Amazon Prime trial and can use it until the free trial expires and then cancel it. Unless you shop very regularly on Amazon, the $99 yearly subscription is unnecessary. So make sure that you cancel before it charges you.

Get your free trial of Amazon Prime here!

Other places to find savings and cashback:

BUILD SAVINGS for Christmas on Auto-Pilot:

Digit

Digit is great when you constantly feel like you just don’t have money to put toward savings. It finds pocket change in your checking account and moves it to a savings account that grows without you doing anything. Even in the holiday spending season, Digit helps you to keep more of your money this Christmas.

It’s not hard to save a nice chunk of money before Christmas so that you can have that extra spending without digging into your regular bank account.

Digit is free for the first 100 days and then costs $2.99 each month after that. If you like it, keep it after the free trial ends, but I’d just plan to cancel after the holidays.

Start using Digit here!

Acorns

Acorns is my latest obsession with saving money, I’ve got to be honest. It’s the same idea as Digit (it saves your pocket change and rounds up to save even more money in a short time), but it then invests your savings to make it grow and earn even more.

It’s like a savings account that grows on its own with a 10.1% interest rate (you read that right – if I invest $100, I’ll make $10.10 – yeah!). They don’t charge a monthly fee, but will eventually take a very small fee from the amount that you earn from your investments.

Start saving with Acorns here!

Find more ways to save money here:

MAKE extra money on the side:

(Note: None of these will make you rich, but it’s a great way to make some extra money pretty quickly! BUT one of these can be a full-time gig!!)

Bestmark

Secret shop from home and make $3-7 per shop you do with Bestmark. Bestmark is a very reputable secret shopping site that works with car dealerships and electronics retailers. You’re basically just checking their customer service.

It’s relatively easy work to complete and you can earn $40 or so each week while spending about 10 minutes per shop. Not too bad!

UserTesting

UserTesting is another highly reputable company that pays you $10 per 5-10 minute survey. It lets you check out websites and apps and let the company know what you think of it.

I earn an extra $120+ month with about a total of 2 hours (usually a lot less than 2 hours though) of work.

VA work

This one is a little more involved, but is in high demand! A “VA” is a “virtual assistant,” who helps online entrepreneurs like bloggers or shop owners manage their lives, and much more. Everything from helping an Etsy shop owner with emails to helping a blogger manage their Facebook, a VA can make a lot of money doing fairly easy tasks.

You can easily charge $10-25+ per hour to help doing things that you already know how to do. If you spend time on the computer during the day, this might be something that you can easily do in your spare time and earn as much as you’d like working from home.

This can also turn into something full-time if you like it enough! My friend Kayla makes a full-time income from her work as a VA.

For more ideas on how to make extra money, check out:

The best thing that you can do to keep more of your money this Christmas is to do your best to find ways to save money!

And say this every day when you get up when you feel like you need to when you hear other moms talking about their Christmas spending…

“There’s NO WAY I am putting myself in debt this Christmas!”

You’ve got this!

Other ways to save around the holidays:

Did I miss anything about saving money for Christmas? Do you still have more questions? Tell me in the comments!

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