Christmas? Why am I talking About it in August?

The major Christmas shopping season is four months away, do you have a plan?  How much money will you need to have saved by then?  Are you on target to have the money or will you be swiping the old credit cards?  NOW is the time to plan for this.  We have a Christmas Club account at our local bank that automatically withdraws $20 a week from our checking account and deposits it into our Christmas Club account.
  After 52 weeks, we end up with a little over $1000 in the account which is enough for the kids' and family's presents.  Make it automatic and it is much less painful.  If you don't have some sort of automatic savings account for Christmas, start today by figuring out how much you plan on spending and divide that by 15.  That is how much money you will need to save each week from now until the Christmas shopping season.  Don't let this sneak up on you.  Christmas spending is not an emergency, it happens at the same time every year!  Let this be a CASH ONLY Christmas.  We made the last two be cash only and it felt great.  I remember that icky feeling I used to have every January once the credit card bill came and realized the we overspent and had no way to pay the balance in full.  Paying interest made me sick.  Be proactive.  Start right now!  You will have the best Christmas ever!