Download the Free Christmas Budget Template to help you celebrate your Christmas this year. You can also check out our collection of Event Budget Templates.
Christmas is the occasion that most Christians celebrate very happily and with the most pleasure. This is also the time of the year when you meet your hometown family members, relatives, and old friends. If you like having people for a meal on Christmas, you should organize a Christmas party so that all of your friends and family members get together and enjoy a delicious meal. On the other hand, you should also understand that planning a Christmas party without considering your budget can create a financial problem for you. This is why you must prepare a budget for the occasion when you want to plan a Christmas party.
Importance of preparing Christmas Budget:
It is straightforward to understand that if you don’t consider the expenses you make on Christmas, you can get into a lot of debt that will be very hard to cover if you only have limited income resources. You may not think about Christmas as an expensive time of the year, but it is the reality that when you arrange for parties, prepare meals for the guests, and arrange for gifts, it can take even thousands of dollars. Use Christmas budget planning to ensure you don’t spend more than you can afford.
Useful tips for preparing a Christmas Budget:
- Calculate the money that you have:
Before you do anything or go any further with the planning, you need to calculate the amount of money you have or want to spend on Christmas. You can either take a portion of your monthly salary in December or you can also use a savings account in which you saved money for the entire year. Either way, check how much money you have that you can spend on Christmas. - Talk to your Friends and Family Members about Gifts:
If you think you can’t afford expensive gifts for your family members and friends, you should talk to them and explain to them why you want them to stick to minimum-budget gifts. This way, you don’t look bad with less expensive gifts when everyone else brings really expensive gifts. - Organize just a Catch-up Christmas:
If you estimate that you can’t purchase gifts this year, it is not very bad and you can still enjoy a good party with your family and friends at your house. Tell your friends you want to organize a catch-up Christmas party this year where you don’t bring gifts but share a meal. - Purchase Gifts when they are on Sale:
If you want to get gifts for your family members and friends, don’t wait until December but keep an eye around you so that when there is a sale, you can buy stuff that won’t cost you as much near Christmas. - Make your Gifts and Decoration:
If you don’t want to buy gifts for your friends or you can’t afford to buy gifts this year, you can also make gifts by yourself. Take a look on the internet and find creative gifts to make for your family members and friends. In the same manner, you can also make your own Christmas party decorations.
Free Christmas Budget Templates
Christmas is the harbinger of the new year and celebration. It brings along happiness, fun, good luck, and lots of love. Though Christmas is the major festival of Christians, it is widely celebrated by all. The birth of Jesus Christ has to be celebrated as a grand feast and thus requires a lot of preparations and pre-planning. The preparations began a month ago and lasted till the 25th of December. Since it is close to the beginning of the new year, the celebrations double, and people enjoy the festive season at its peak. The most important of all is to prepare a Christmas Budget. Since the festival is considered to bring peace and a sense of sharing happiness, gifts and other exchanges of items are common. Thus, one and all, there are many things to be managed; hence, preparing a Christmas Budget is a must.
Download the Free Christmas Budget Template that can easily help you to prepare your own Christmas Budget effectively.
Preparing a Christmas Budget is not complex if you follow the guidelines mentioned. Initially, list down all the major things to be purchased. Ensure that you prioritize your list and do not forget to mention the quantity and the cost. Make separate sections for gifts, cards, decorations, cooking supplies, etc. It is better to segregate the components as needed. Since it is a grand festival, there would be too many expenses. Therefore, it is better to plan the budget in a systematic order.
The top space of the budget describes the total expenses, including all major components. Below this section, make separate sections for gifts, decorations, kitchen supplies (food, cake), and other necessities. Next to this, make three columns- one for the actual cost, one for the estimated cost, and the last for the difference between the two. Keep updating your Christmas Budget as you make purchases. You can also put a check box on the top right space to update the number of gifts purchased. It is advised to highlight the figures in the difference column with green or red. Green is used to represent cash surplus, i.e., the actual cost incurred is less than the estimated cost.
The Christmas Budget can be prepared in an Excel sheet, a Word doc, on your mobile phone, or even on a piece of paper. But if you choose the digital medium, it is always better that your work will be done easily, consume less time, and be error-free. Also, you can easily send the budget to any of your friends or relatives via email. You are free to add on certain things like whom to gift and the quantity to be purchased. This will make it more detailed and will be easy for you to plan things. A Christmas Budget must be prepared at least a month before the festival date and keep on updating as you proceed. Thus, if you follow the above-mentioned guidelines, you will be able to prepare a Christmas Budget effectively and efficiently. A budget is known to be effective if the difference between the estimated cost and the actual cost is negligible.