Jingle Bills, Jingle Bills, Jingle all the way...

So, I stayed under budget last pay period enough that I broke even budget wise over the last month. Yay!

But danger is looming.

It’s really close.

It’s…. the holiday season… *cue scary music*

That’s right, it’s the holidays again. As I mentioned before, my mom’s birthday, my dad’s birthday, and Christmas all fall within just over a month of each other. Do you smell something burning? That’s my wallet.

I had planned on making everyone gifts for Christmas (knitting scarves, sewing shoulder bags, making cookies and candy), which I realized recently wasn’t going to happen due to the amount of time it would take and how much time I actually had to work with. That and I remembered how much Canada Post was going to charge me to mail that stuff to my grandparents.

Then I remembered how much it was going to cost to express post them if I was late getting them out the door again.

So, my mom and I were discussing Christmas gifts today, and I broached the subject of putting a budget on the upcoming holidays. Thankfully, she was receptive to the idea. We agreed on a budget of $150-$200 per person for Christmas. Before you raise a stink that it’s an exorbitant amount of money, I’d like to point out that our usual budget is I-want-to-give-you-the-world-and-so-I’m-going-to-try-until-my-bank-account-is-empty-and-my-cards-are-racked-up. $150-$200 is a sizable step down.

Which is bringing me to my current transgression…

I’m going Birthday/Christmas shopping today, and using my line of credit to do it. I feel like slapping my own hand for typing that, but it is what it is. That way I can ship the gifts out using regular postage, and I can pay it off leading up to Christmas. I’ll spend about $5 in interest charges over the course of the month, and save WAY more than that in postage.

*SPOILER ALERT*

As for that cute packaging I bought for the baked goods I was going to be making? My friends are still getting homemade candy. Not a complete loss there.

*END OF SPOILER ALERT*

Those shoes I broke a while back and was going to get fixed? I talked to the cobbler yesterday, they're a lost cause. That's one big pouty face going on over here right now.