Live within your means during festive season

Garth Petersen Windhoek-With the festive season fast approaching, a lot of us are scrambling to finalise our holiday plans, from buying gifts to laying out our travel plans. Tis the time to be jolly and we tend to lose ourselves in the merriment of the season to put the hard work of the year behind us; however, during this time it’s also easy to throw caution to the wind and disregard our budget. We all work hard through the year, sacrificing precious time away from our families so when the festive season comes we want to reward those close to us with some extra spoiling. Unfortunately, this sometimes means that we tend to overspend, forgetting that the often tough January month is ahead of us. While it may be too late to start saving for the benefit of 2017, it is important to live within our means and not overspend during the festive season, to ensure we don’t commence 2018 with overdrawn accounts. Easier said than done, so what tactical measures would make sense to assist us, firstly a good approach would be to separate savings accounts for the festive season, do this by placing the savings portion into an investment account. Another approach is to draw up a special budget for the festive season, how many gifts, what is the value of the gifts. Thirdly, if you are traveling, itemize the expenses, fuel, accommodation, excursions, etc. it will allow you to practically know what you intend spending on what. We all know that once Christmas is over all the stores hang out the sale signs. So if you are to withstand the need for excessive gifts under the tree, commit to purchasing certain items once the sales commence. This will definitely assist in saving. Furthermore, many companies pay bonuses in December which often equates to a 13th cheque, saving a portion of that in an investment account will definitely give you a kick start in the new year. It is not easy to withstand spending over the festive season, however, do this with some caution and the benefit is that your new year will commence positively and the focus can be on accomplishing versus regret.   * Garth Petersen is Standard Bank’s head of prestige and student banking
New Era Reporter
2017-11-21 10:03:53 1 years ago