Staying In Control Of Your Costs This Christmas Season – By Sola Adesakin

Needless to say that Christmas is generally a time to celebrate, it’s also the end of the year; a time synonymous with giving, receiving, eating, feeding and all manner of celebrations.
Year in year out, I have seen and spoken to people who thoroughly enjoyed the yuletide celebrations, but find themselves lamenting for lack of funds right from the first week in January!

Let me share 7 Cs that will help you control your Christmas costs, help you avoid the January blues and help you start the New Year on a strong note financially.

1. CALCULATE

Put a pen to paper to calculate what your Needs are. It’s better to buy what you need (and what you need to give out) than buying what you don’t need and end up tossing a lot of things into the bin. Yes, Christmas should be a time of abundance in terms of eating and giving, but definitely not a time of abundance of wastage.

2. COMPARE

Irrespective of wherever you live in the world, there are free trackers, templates, online sites and softwares that will help you check and compare the prices of different items across different stores. Recently, I bought a particular Vegetable oil brand from a particular area, and to my utter dismay, it was about 15% cheaper in another area. Talk about price discrimination! Had I made my proper inquiries, I would have been able to save that extra bit in my pocket still.

 

3. CANCEL

Are there subscriptions and recurring monthly outflows that you don’t necessarily need? It’s a good time to cancel them. They may seem insignificant in your budget, but remember the saying…”Little drops make a mighty ocean”. Prioritize your utilities and stick to only the “must-have”, “need-to-have”. The “Nice-to-have” can be accommodated only if you can afford them!

4. CAN all you Can

Usually, during the Christmas Celebration Season, if you could go through the trash bin of many families, you will realize how wasteful people could be. Soda cans, pet bottles containing unfinished drinks, disposable plates of leftover food and so on, are not uncommon in the garbage bags.
It’s okay to celebrate in a “magnanimous” way, but please pack those things out of the reach of your children and only give it to them on demand. Sometimes, children indulge because these things are within their reach and they just keep taking and taking and wasting and wasting.

5. CASH

Keep less cash within your reach. Once you firm up your Christmas list, whatever cash you have on hand should be for emergencies and a few miscellaneous items. I do not like to hold so much cash in my wallet; I’d rather keep it in the bank and give myself a longer time to rationalize the expense before withdrawing!

6. CAUTION

Please exercise caution during this yuletide period and emphasize this to your children also. A lot of people end up in the hospital or emergency wards as a result of food poisoning and domestic accidents. If you will be entertaining guests in your house, especially those who would be coming around with children, ensure you put the necessary precautionary measures in place. Lack of this has resulted in huge hospital expenses for a lot of families. Clean up your environment also to avoid parasites and other things that thrive in a dirty environment.

7. CHOICES
Make wise choices in spending during this season: where you go, what you eat and the things you do. Remember there’s life after 2016 Christmas. Bills will never cease to exist, and particularly, the children’s school fees in January; that month of the year that seems to be the longest month of the year from experience. Don’t ditch your goals; don’t indulge in Christmas expenses at the detriment of a clean financial state of health.

Having said all of the above, Christmas is a great time to Celebrate the birth of our Saviour . Enjoy every bit of it and stay in Control of your finances!

Best Regards,
Sola Adesakin

BRIEF BIO: Sola Adesakin has a BSc degree in Applied Accounting from Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom; She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and also a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants of the United Kingdom. She is currently undergoing an MBA at Edinburgh Business School, United Kingdom.

She is the Host Steward at www.smartstewards.com, The Visionary of www.fruitfoundation.org and the Managing Partner of www.booksmartsolutions.com. She has authored two books titled Rubies of a wisdom and Pebbles from the Rock and co-authored a book titled God’s choice of the Chosen; a character study on the life of David and she is currently working on a couple of other books. She currently blogs at www.myreadywriter.blogspot.com

She is happily married with children.