I have tried to put off talking about Christmas up until now but unfortunately I can no longer ignore the Christmas freight train coming our way in 44 days to be exactly. So without putting you in a Christmas frenzy I thought I would gently ease you into thinking about it! That's if you already haven't started thinking about it!
Over the weekend my family sat down and organised our Christmas menu and picked out our secret Santa's. It probably sounds a little premature in organising it but it gives us time to organise and the things we have to make, write out our secret Santa present lists and buy Christmas presents. I think the key to a stress less Christmas is being organised and staying on budget!
Budget for Christmas you say... yes a budget is VERY important. I found the best thing for me was to open a "Christmas account" with my local bank. I calculated Christmas present costs, approximate food costs, a few extra dollars for any unknown extras and Christmas holiday costs if we were going away for that year. I divided it to a fortnightly price and set up an automatic transfer to the Christmas account. The great thing (or bad thing) about the Christmas account is you are unable to touch it until the 1st of December! It is a bit late to start one for this year but I encourage you to go and open one today planning for next year. It saves the worry of trying to find the money at the end of the year, generally after all the big bills have come! Does that sound familiar?
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Budget for Christmas you say... yes a budget is VERY important. I found the best thing for me was to open a "Christmas account" with my local bank. I calculated Christmas present costs, approximate food costs, a few extra dollars for any unknown extras and Christmas holiday costs if we were going away for that year. I divided it to a fortnightly price and set up an automatic transfer to the Christmas account. The great thing (or bad thing) about the Christmas account is you are unable to touch it until the 1st of December! It is a bit late to start one for this year but I encourage you to go and open one today planning for next year. It saves the worry of trying to find the money at the end of the year, generally after all the big bills have come! Does that sound familiar?
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Anyway over the next couple of weeks I hope to give some helpful tips and ideas that will help you get through the silly season and hopefully be a little more prepared, organised and relaxed facing christmas.
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It's time to announce the winners of our Cut Out The Crap cookbook giveaways.
There were lots of comments for this giveaway, which was great to see. I thank Collette once again for being so generous in giving three of her cookbooks away. If you didn't win a cookbook today I urge you to still go out and buy a copy of the book for yourself or for a christmas present for someone near and dear!
Winners are:
Congratulations to all! If you can email me your address's to diaryofwhimsicalwife{at}gmail.com so i can send out your prize.
Until next week... have a great weekend!
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