How to Recover From Your Holiday Spending - Money Tip Tuesday

It’s normal to spend money during the holidays. You want to give presents to the people you love to show how much you appreciate them. But now that the holidays are over, and you’ve given out all your gifts, you now have to deal with the financial aftermath. Here are some tips on how to recover from your holiday spending spree. 

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Transcript:

Welcome to Money Tip Tuesday from the Making Money Personal podcast. 

The first thing you’re going to want to do is assess your financial situation. See how much money you owe and then start paying off your debt as quickly as possible.   

To do this, you might have to change your monthly budget in January around. Make a list of all your debts, payment due dates, minimum payment amounts, interest rates, and when you plan on paying them off. From there, you can restructure your January budget to fit your needs best.  

You will probably want to start paying off the credit cards with the highest interest rates first. Don’t just pay off the minimum monthly payment, even if it’s just an extra $10, the more money you put towards every payment the less you’ll owe in the long run and the faster you’ll pay it off. And always make sure to pay on time. 

You can also open an unsecured personal loan to reduce the cost of paying back how much you owe. Personal loans typically have a lower interest rate than credit cards do which makes them great for debt consolidation. Triangle Credit Union offers a wonderful personal unsecured line of credit that is a helpful safety net for any unexpected expenses and gives you plenty of flexibility to access funds when you need them for any financial situation. 

Did you get a holiday bonus or are you expecting some money from your tax returns? Consider using some of this money to put towards your holiday debt. Don’t consider bonuses or tax returns as money you can just freely spend, but rather view them as money you can save on the side or use to pay for things you’ve already bought.  

Once you’ve done all that, now is the perfect time to start thinking about next year’s holiday shopping. Yes, it is a bit early, but if you start planning what to do with your money now, you hopefully won’t need to recover from your holiday spending next time.  

One thing you can start doing now is put money aside specifically for holiday shopping. Budget out how much of your paycheck you want to put aside for this fund. By the time the holidays come around, you’ll have a nice amount of money to spend. Plan out what you are going to buy next time so you don’t overspend.  

If there are any other tips or topics you’d like us to cover, let us know at tcupodcast@trianglecu.org and don't forget to like and follow our Making Money Personal Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages and look for our sponsor, Triangle Credit Union on Instagram and LinkedIn to share your thoughts.  

Thanks for listening to today’s Money Tip Tuesday and be sure to check out our other tips and episodes on the Making Money Personal podcast.  

Have a great day!