How To Set Your Christmas Budget

I know this may be late, but this is very useful information in preparing and shopping for the holidays.  Be enlightened!

Step By Step Guide for Making Your Christmas Budget

1. Make a long list of everyone to whom you want to give a Christmas gift.

Be sure to include the following groups of people:

• Family – aunts, uncles, children, spouse, cousins, siblings, grandparents, and even the stray dog your brother-in-law adopted.  Include everyone you WANT to give a gift to.
• Co-workers – partners, bosses, co-workers, support staff
• Church friends – Bible school teachers, church staff, grandparent figures
• Community friends – neighbors, fellow volunteers, clerk at the grocery store
• Those who provide services – paperboy, mail man, pizza delivery boy, yard worker, pool cleaner, teachers
• Anyone else – feeling jovial?  Put them on the list.

2. Determine how much you can afford to spend on Christmas.

This calculation can be relatively simple.  How much money can you save between now and December 25th? How many of those dollars are you willing to dedicate towards Christmas gifts?

Christmas Spending Rule:

How much you can afford to spend must be an amount you save in CASH.  This is not an ‘if-I-were-rich-I-would-budget-this’ list. This is how much you actually have to give for Christmas.  If the number is low, that is fine.  Christmas is not about financially crippling yourself so someone can have a pair of socks that will go in the trash before January. Christmas is about expressing love and appreciation.  Both of which can be done without money.  Christmas can be enjoyed without money.  Be sure that your budget is reasonable in relationship to your income.  This can be done by making sure your total amount fits within recommended budget percentages.

3. Prioritize your list from step #1.  Make it a short list.

If married, before prioritizing the list, pray that God will give you the patience to work together – not against each other.

You might want to cut out your Great Aunt Sally, but your wife has given her a gift every year for two decades.  She might want to remove a business partner who doesn’t deserve anything, but you want to grease that relationship.  This process could be painful, so prayerfully get on the same page before you start.

At this stage you are just going to separate each name into three groups – paid gift, made gift, no gift. Since you know how much you can afford to give you will have a better sense of how many people can be on your paid gift list.  Knowing your time, available you can limit your made gift list. The others – no gift, but perhaps a Christmas card.

4. Assign and complete necessary preparations.

Paid Gift List:

Beside each name on the paid gift list, assign a budgeted amount.  For example, dad might get $50 and cousin Steve $25.  Be sure that total does not exceed the amount in Step #2.  The only rule here is you cannot overspend that amount on that person.  Here are 8 tips to save money on your Christmas shopping.

Made Gift List:

What will you make?  Cookies and other Christmas treats are a great idea for close friends, neighbors, and colleagues.  For family, a customized card with a picture of the kids will suffice.  Need some guidance?  Here is a list of 50 Personalized Christmas Gift Ideas.

No Gift:

If they made it on your first list you might just send them a personalized card.

Merry Christmas Uncle Joe.  We just wanted to let you know that you are a special part of our family.  Thanks for all the time and attention you give to our kids.  We’re blessed to have an uncle like you.

5. Make the budget work.

Don’t spend more than you budgeted.

If your budget is tight, you will need to capitalize on a free valuable resource – CREATIVITY.  Creativity must be combined with another necessary ingredient – TIME.

Time + Creativity = Awesome Valuable Christmas Presents for a Lower Price

How do you set your Christmas budget?  How soon do you start saving money for Christmas?

Source:  http://www.christianpf.com/how-to-make-a-christmas-budget/

The Test

The Test
By Sherrie Coronas

The stunning, unexpected words ricocheted through my mind like a bullet in a tin can. Bursts of unwanted adrenalin made it difficult to think straight and impossible to form complete sentences.

“Uh ha.,” I said with air that just barely escaped from my throat as it slowly swelled to a close. “I see,” I continued in anguish. “Uh ha,” I repeated because I could no longer think of other words from the English language. “OK. Yep,” I said before I slapped close my cell phone completely perplexed.

I stared blankly at the cell phone that only a week earlier had delivered fantastic news that I was certain would change my life forever. I was asked to consider coming on board the church staff to fill a writing position being created for our flourishing website. I was absolutely thrilled.

Until that time, volunteer writing for the site was squeezed in at the end of a long day at work or in between the errands of a busy weekend. Now, I believed, God would get the best of me. I was told that paperwork for the new job should be in place in about a week. Surprisingly, I didn’t ask for any further details.

The pure elation of the opportunity lasted for about one day before the enemy’s attack ensued. Really, I should have seen it coming. It was that old, worn out issue of money. “Would this job pay enough?” asked the enemy.

You see, my “love of money” had never been in the form of greed but in the form of equally destructive fear. Growing up in a family that survived just above the poverty line, I pledged long ago to work as hard as I could to earn as much money as possible and doing so quietly dominated my young adult life.

Worrying about money was as easy as breathing for me. At age 39, I found myself making a more than sufficient amount of it but with very little peace in my life. The fear of insufficient funds gripped my soul and served as a constant source of tension within my family.

Completely worn out with the struggle, I decided to cast my life-long burden of money upon of the Lord and trust that He would sustain our family as He promises in the Bible. Despite that school tuition would be due soon, the price of gasoline was on the rise and the car was in the shop for repair, I would take the church job that would likely pay half of what I was earning at that time and prove, once and for all, that God is my true master. I was completely unaware as to how we would pay all the bills but I was ready to take the leap of faith.

Thus, when the bad news arrived a week later that the new writing job was not funded by the church’s board of directors and there was no place for me on the church staff after all, I was simply bewildered and devastated.

“What’s going on, God?” I questioned out loud when my head started to clear and my throat began accepting air once again. “I was ready to do this for YOU. I’d give up the salary and the title to serve you Lord,” I reminded Him with increasing vigor.

Then, God spoke these words to me. “Now, here is the good news. You’ve passed the test. Remember, I didn’t really need Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac on that alterI just needed to know that he would.”

Sherrie is a believer in Jesus Christ, a website writer for her church, a wife of 25 years and a mother of two teen sons. She resides with her family on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, where she was born and raised.

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS-MAKE A WEBSITE

Do the Math:Debit Card Users Beware

As consumers everywhere tighten their belts due to the looming economic recession and the credit crunch banks have found another way to prey on already strapped, unsuspecting consumers.  Banks all over the country are imposing higher checking fees and almost criminal overdraft fees on account holders.

According to a report released in USA Today, banks are using tactics such as transaction sorting or high-to-low clearing in order to cause consumers to overdraft their accounts resulting in numerous overdraft fees.

Here’s how it works: If you have several small transactions ($8.59, $4.76, $2.39, $21.62, etc.) and then a larger transaction ($97.22), in that order, your bank chooses to pay the larger transaction first resulting in overdraft fees on each of the smaller transactions that would have cleared had the bank not sorted your transactions.  With overdraft fees as high as $33.00 at some institutions, this can cause some consumers to spiral deeper into financial ruin.  In our scenario above it would cost the account holder $132 in overdraft fees! That’s right, your bank can manipulate the order checks and/or debits in order to maximize on overdraft fees.

Large banks are more likely to process items in high-to-low order, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. found in a February survey, and about half of overdrafts occur at ATMs or via debit card transactions, which tend to be for smaller amounts.

Reportedly, the banks with the highest fees seem to be the ones that benefited the most from the recent government bailouts.  In June, Bank of America raised its monthly fee on certain checking accounts and impose a fee on accounts that remain overdrawn. SunTrust , meanwhile, is starting to charge customers a higher fee when they overdraw multiple times. Wachovia, now a part of Wells Fargo, has made it more expensive for some customers to transfer funds to cover overdrafts. And Citigroup (C) has raised foreign-transaction fees on debit cards.

Of course, banks say that consumers should balance their accounts and overdraft fees are in place to discourageme account holders from overextending their accounts.  Banks claim that their research shows consumers want them to clear those larger items for them because they are usually mortgages or rents.  However, most consumer advocates believe that banks want consumers to overdraft and make it easy to do so by approving the transactions for which consumers do not have the money in their accounts to cover.

In recent years, banks have also begun automatically covering consumers’ overdrafts — even if they didn’t sign up for a service — and then charging them a fee for doing so. This automatic coverage, which banks sometimes refer to as “courtesy overdraft,” has come under fire from lawmakers, regulators, advocates and even attorneys.

News outlets reported that in March of this year Bank of America (BAC) agreed to pay $35 million to settle a class-action lawsuit related to overdraft fees. The lawsuit alleged that BofA authorized transactions that led to overdraft fees and posted transactions in an order that increased such fees. BofA, in settling the lawsuit, denied the claims and said that its policies fully comply with federal law. The bank declined further comment on the lawsuit.

Some institutions have even been accused of holding deposits until after all transactions for the day have cleared, even though the deposit was made prior to any transactions.  This causes a major problem for consumers that rely on online banking and checking their account balances by phone, which is encouraged by their banks.  The balance(s) reflected are not always accurate or easy for consumers to understand.

Let us not become discouraged but rather be more informed consumers and stewards.  Remember Philippians 4:19!

Avoid Overdraft Fees with these Tips

• Balance checking accounts the old fashioned way  (This is a tough one for most of us)
• Use overdraft protection linked to a savings account to avoid fees (this must be specifically requested)
• Find out if the balances reflected online are accurate, real-time, balances including pending items
• Opt-out of courtesy overdraft by asking your bank to set the debit overdraw amount to zero (this will cause items you can’t cover to be rejected)
• Switch to a community bank or credit union

The Stimulus Package and You

With all the buzz about the stimulus package, most Americans are wondering, “How will this effect me?”  I found a great article that breifly breaks down where most of the funds are going and the direct impact on the American people.  Read and be enlightened.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090214/ap_on_go_co/stimulus_stakes_who_gets_what

Keep It Under Control

The holiday season is upon us.  Christmas is but a few short days away.  Due to economic woes many families have been forced to reevaluate how they will celebrate the holidays.  An uncertain job market, credit crunch, gas prices, and rising food costs are leading families to change their focus this holiday season.

Now, more than ever it is important for us to teach our children the real meaning of Christmas.  Rather than being swept away by all that consumerism has done to cloud how we view of, dare I say, the reason for the season, we should share with them just why the birth of our Savior was so important.

Our children should be aware that the birth of Jesus fulfilled prophecies of old.  The Messiah that would save everyone, Jew and Gentile, was born.  He was not created by a human father and mother. He had a heavenly pre-existence (John 1:1-3, 14). He is God, the Son—Creator of the universe (Philippians 2:5-11).   For that reason Christmas is called the incarnation, a word which means “in the flesh.”  The birth of Jesus, the eternal, all-powerful and all-knowing Creator came to earth in the flesh.