Holiday planning…in July! Tips for proactive planning for a peaceful and affordable holiday season.
It seems like the holiday season (i.e. Thanksgiving, Christmas) comes way too fast every year, but this year you can take charge and start planning early. When you start early and taking advantage of the extra time, you can maintain your budget today and minimize or eliminate credit card debt and high interest rates in the future.
How do you start?
- Create a list of people you want to buy gifts for and what gift you want to purchase for each person along with how much the gift costs. Include a few extra gifts for the unexpected people you will want to give a gift to during the holiday season.
- Create a budget to help you figure out how much you are able to spend for each person without going into any kind of debt. Readjust the “want to buy” for each person based on the budget you just created.
- Schedule time and assign money to purchasing gifts over the next few months so you can purchase items for each person on your list. Take advantage of budgeting tools available from Fidelity Investments on http://www.netbenefits.com/atwork or log in to the Fidelity site and click on the link for Financial Engines for even more tools.
- Money left over? When the gifts are purchased, you’ve just gotten started. Don’t get caught short when other holiday expenses come up. Put aside money now for holiday travel, gatherings you host and year-end charitable giving.
Do you have a great success story of something you do to plan ahead? Please share it in the comments below!
Excellent advice! Thank you, Cheryl.
We use the Mayo Credit Union and have sub-accounts within our savings. One of the sub-accounts we have is called "Gifts". It allows us to save every paycheck so we don't feel the crunch all at once during the expensive holiday season.
Thanks for suggesting we start planning now, @cgmaui! It will take the stress out of having to come up with ideas of what to purchase later this year. 🙂
Is there a Credit Union at each campus? I start at the Jacksonville campus on July 30 and can any Mayo Employee join the credit union?
Yes, the Mayo credit union in in the Stabile North building in Jacksonville– 1st floor at the main entrance. The staff is super friendly and helpful.
Hi Rhonda! Welcome to the Mayo Clinic family. While I don't want to speak on behalf of the credit union, I do believe all employees are eligible. To learn more about how to join, please visit https://cs.loanspq.com/CONSUMER/LOGIN/DEFAULT.ASPX?LenderID=aaf6a31338dd46fba107aac539754e02 or a local credit union. I'm sure they will be more than happy to talk to you about the process.
Thank you. Cheryl
Thank you! I appreciate the information.
Thanks. I will check it out when I come for my health assessment on July 13.
Hi Rhonda! You, as well as your family, are eligible to join. We have nine locations, one in Jacksonville as well as Arizona, La Crosse, WI and the six remaining in Rochester. You can connect with Mirjana and her team in Jacksonville in July or open your account now at mayocreditunion.org. Our Jacksonville office is located in the Stabile North building.
Thank you so much!