How did we do on our Christmas budget?

December 27, 2008 · Posted in About Us, Frugal Spending, Kids 

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christmas tree in light
Creative Commons License photo credit: milele

In a previous post, I mentioned that we hoped to spend $250 total on Christmas this year.  We had $95 dollars left and quite a bit to still get.  So in the end, how did things turn out?

  • We actually ended up with $105 to spend, since my mom wanted to contribute to the gift certificate for my stepfather (we had budgeted $20, but only spent $10).
  • We spent $15 on my brother – we redeemed $20 in gift cards from Amazon, and split the cost of a Wii game with my grandmother.
  • We didn’t get my sister-in-law anything.  Things have been tough for her this year, and she didn’t want to exchange gifts.
  • We spent $48 on the tree, which was $13 more than we expected.
  • We spent $20 on a gift card for my sister-in-law’s boyfriend, and $20 on a simple train to put under the tree for the kid.  I also spend $5 for some alphabet foam stickers (the kids only request to Santa).

Overall, that put us at $3 over budget for Christmas.  I can live with that!

I would highly recommend a Christmas budget for everyone.  It really forced us to pick and choose what was most important to us, and as an added bonus, we don’t have a ton of useless crap after Christmas!

Did you follow a budget this year?  If so, how did it go?

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Comments

2 Responses to “How did we do on our Christmas budget?”

  1. jkinoc on December 29th, 2008 12:25 am

    We did ok even without a budget. My wife and her family agreed that it was only kids presents this year so that helped alot, I think we came in about $250 as well so I consider this Christmas season a success.

    Happy Holidays!!!

  2. Movingonup! on December 29th, 2008 4:12 pm

    $3 over? Not shabby at all!

    Movingonup!s last blog post..Half way to debt freedom!

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