Black Friday deals are probably piled up on your kitchen counter and overflowing your inbox right about now. Companies start promoting these deals at the beginning of November and most of the time cannot even wait until Black Friday to start selling! These sales are a great way to cross items off of your Christmas shopping list but can also become budget busters without the proper planning. You don’t have to spend January afraid of the credit card bills coming in, you can use our Christmas Mini-Budget to get Black Friday ready.
This budget tool is incredibly simple to use and does all the math for you. All you have to do is enter the total amount you want to spend this Christmas season and then list each person you plan on buying a gift for. Make sure you include everyone that you will spend money on, if they don’t make the list, they don’t get a gift. It might sound harsh but you don’t have to spend money on every single person that you know.
After you have listed the amount of money you want to spend and the people you plan to spend it on, you can begin to divy up your spending. Next to each person’s name, put the dollar amount that you plan to spend on them. You’ll notice as you start adding in numbers that the bottom of the spreadsheet will change colors. Like all of our budgeting templates, the trick is to make you INCOME – OUTGO = EXACTLY ZERO. Once you have accomplished this, the cell will turn green.
Until you begin making purchases, the “actual” column will be yellow. This indicates you still have money to spend. When you actually buy the gift, record that in the actual column. If you spend less than you planned, the cell will remain yellow. You can either spend more money or reallocate those funds to another person. If you spend the exact amount you planned, the cell will turn green. On the other hand, if you spend more than you planned, the cell will turn red. You either need to take that money from someone else’s gift or take the gift back and find one within budget. You’ll know when your budget equals EXACTLY ZERO on all fronts when all of the cells turn green.
Black Friday and Christmas shopping don’t have to be stressful. With the proper planning you can avoid going over budget and putting yourself in debt to start the new year.
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