By Justin Creech
Staff Writer
Thursday, December 13, 2012

Parents love to dote on their children during Christmas, but they need to be sure they have the funds to buy those elaborate gifts.

Setting a dollar amount to spend on each Family member is an effective way to not exceed a Family’s budget during the Christmas season.

“Families need to have a budget on how much they are going to set aside to spend on Christmas gifts and stick to it,” said Erica Drame, Army Community Service Financial Readiness Program manager. “Set aside a dollar amount for how much you are going to spend per person so you know the total dollar amount you need to stay within.”

Staying within the boundaries of a Family’s annual income is important, too. Christmas is about spiritual celebration and not gifts, according to Drame. So, Families shouldn’t feel like they need to buy their children or spouse elaborate gifts.

Putting money into a Christmas budget throughout the year is also more fruitful for Families than waiting until December to start buying gifts with what’s leftover from their paychecks.

“A large amount of people wait until their mid-December check to start thinking of how much money is left over to spend,” said Drame. “It depends on what you have and what’s realistic for you and you’re Family. You can’t spend $1,000 if you only bring in $800 every month.”

Planning for when a Family is going to start Christmas shopping and saving for it is more successful than rush shopping, according to Drame, because it prevents Families from overextending their budgets.

“I feel like a lot of Soldiers rush shop instead of planning how much they are going to spend and who they’re buying for,” said Drame. “That can cause you to use your credit cards to supplement the cash income, which is not good.”

Drame is a strong advocate of not using credit cards for holiday shopping because of the financial freedom some shoppers feel a credit card gives them.

“When you shop with (credit cards) you have a tendency to spend more than you anticipated because you don’t see (credit card debt) as real money,” said Drame.

Families can save money by doing their research. Online shopping can be utilized to save money since the prices for items are usually cheaper. Checking the Sunday paper for information on department stores like Macy’s and Nordstrom’s is also productive because they have information on holiday sales, said Drame.

Families can also make use of Christmas saving programs at Credit Unions and banks. Fort Belvoir Credit Union has a savings program that allows Families to put however much money a month they want into the account to build towards Christmas shopping.

“If you have saved $25 a month since January, once Christmas comes around, you have that much money to use on top of however much else you’re going to spend,” said Drame. “Or, you just have that money to spend.”

The program is referred to as a rolling savings account and allows Families to save towards more than just Christmas expenses.

“You can actually outline all of your once a year expenses: your property taxes, Christmas, birthdays, things like that,” said Kelli Jo Anthon, Belvoir Credit Union financial counselor. “You will organize those on a worksheet, add up all the estimated costs and divide that by twelve so you see how much a month you need to put into the account.”

Financial Readiness also provides aid during the holiday season through Operation Sugarplum. Operation Sugarplum is a program for Soldiers with a rank of sergeant or below, Department of the Army civilian GS-7 and below, and NAF-2 and below.

The program, which started Oct. 15 and runs through Dec. 12, provides gift cards and food cards for Families for Christmas.

“We have businesses, organizations, and individuals, military and civilian, that understand Soldiers are having difficult times and want to help them during the Christmas season,” said Drame. “We get a good amount of participation from the community.”

Drame said gas cards, restaurant cards, generic credit/debit cards or food cards from grocery stores are donated and given to those who participate in the program. The amount each Family member receives is help enough to make Christmas spending a little easier.

“We don’t have a set dollar amount,” said Drame. “But, we like to give each Family member $25 minimum.”