Our Christmas Gifts List / Budget Tracker

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It's already September 1st - which means, in this side of the planet, it's the start of the Christmas season. Hooray!

September is also the month I start planning for the holiday expenses. As a spendthrift on rehab, planning the expenses is a must. A few years ago, I didn't care about budgeting for the holidays-always thinking that I have my 13th month pay to cover that. When January came, along came the realization that not only was my bonus gone- I also incurred credit card debts. What a way to start a new year, right?

Nah, this wasn't intended to dampen your Christmas spirit. ;) I'm just trying to help you prevent that all too familiar post-Christmas headaches. In my experience, one of the causes of those headaches is the huge amount spent on Christmas gifts.

Why I Use A Budget Tracker

Just like Santa, I keep a list of recipients. At first, it was just a simple list. When I got married, my list doubled since I had to take into account my husband's (nonexistent) list. Because the list became longer, I was forced to create a budget for the expenses. So, the budget tracker was born.

It's my third year to use a budget tracker, and it helps me a lot mainly because:

I no longer overspend (a lot!).

I never stayed on budget (who does?). However, I managed to stay within the comfortable overspending limit. It helps that I don't have to perform calculations whenever I input the amount spent. I get  to  see the actual total of the amount spent right away.

I can plan my Christmas shopping.

Having a list of all recipients (as well as their age) makes it possible for me to plan my shopping trips. I would group together recipients within the same age bracket and buy similar items. If I think I can get it cheaper if I buy wholesale, I go to Divisoria.

Here's another scenario. Last year, we spent Christmas in Cebu. Since I did not have time to go to Divisoria, I opted to buy SM Advantage Card vouchers and simply redeem the voucher in SM Cebu. It saved us a lot of time packing gifts for the trip.

The New Budget Tracker

For this year, I've decided to upgrade my excel file to use pivot and display charts. And I will be sharing this with you, dear mommies.

The file contains two worksheets: SUMMARY and MASTERLIST.

Summary

This worksheet will give you an overview of the two most important things: how much you planned to spend and how much you ACTUALLY spent so far. Data is grouped by category. Please note, you do not input anything here.

Masterlist

This is where the action is. In this sheet, you will input the names, assign budgets and categories. I've added an age column. When buying gifts for my inaanaks, knowing their age can be useful because I don't see them often so I can't estimate their sizes.

In my budget, I don't record expenses for gift wrappers or packaging. For several years, I have stopped using gift wrapping papers. Instead, I just use old magazines to wrap presents.

To download, click here.

We, at Mommy HQ, sincerely hope this will help prevent that dreaded financial "hangover". Feel free to leave a message if you think there are areas that need improvement. Or if you have suggestions for other topics.

Happy budgeting for the holidays!