1: Buy a Smaller Christmas Tree. I have found that most people buy trees that are just too large for their home. When you go to the Tree Farm, Take a look around. When you think you have the perfect size tree for your home, change gears and look at a tree that is one step smaller. It should save you $15-20.

2. Create a separate saving account at your bank in October or early November. Transfer money to it every week. You will earn interest on the amount you deposit. It will also get the money out of your regular account and help you save for Christmas presents.

3. Invest in a timer for your Christmas Lights. Most people turn on their Christmas lights then forget to turn them off. This means they burn all night. If you have a timer that turns them on at 7 and off at 10pm, you will only have your lights on for three hours a day and will save money in the long run.

4. Invest in a space heater. Turn off the Central Heating when everyone is in the living room. (If you turn off the heat, the teenagers who are in their rooms will start to get cold and move to the living room.) The space heater will keep everyone warm till bed time. Then turn on the central heat when it is time to go to bed.

5. Use newspaper to wrap all your presents. Wrapping Paper is so expensive. You can usually get it cheap after Christmas. Buy it then and save it for next year.

6. Take advantage of the free turkey offers at your local supermarket. Most supermarkets give away turkeys or hams when you collect points. Usually you collect these points by spending $35+ seven or eight times over the course of 8 weeks.

7. Take a year off from buying new decorations. We usually add something new every year to our decorations. That costs money. If you can hold off buying anything new this year, you will have more money to spend on your family. If you can wait till the week of Christmas or the week after Christmas, you will find, most of the decorations will be on sale. If you have to buy them, buy them on sale.

8. Make your Christmas Dinner a Pot-Luck. You be in charge of cooking the Meat dish. Ask all of your guests to bring a covered dish. Make sure you know who is bringing what. You will want to know what might be missing. It would be bad to have Ham and a bunch of cookies for Christmas Dinner.

9. Wear jackets or pile together under blankets. When your family is hanging out together, wear jackets or give everyone a blanket to get under instead of turning up the heat.

10. Find reasons to use the stove. Cook a lot this season. Don’t get take out. The more you cook at home, the less you will spend on food. Plus when you use the stove, you can leave the door cracked after the food has been cooked and let the heat into the house. This will let you tower the temp on your thermostat.

11. Stay home for Christmas. I know some of your family will not like this idea, but traveling long distances to be with extended family can be expensive. Spend time with them on Skype or call them on the phone and use your intercom option on your phone to make sure they are still part of your Christmas Day.

12. Budget yourself on Christmas Gifts. Limit what your going to buy for each person before you start your shopping. If you can plan what your are going to spend on everyone, you can figure out how you are going to make the money for the season.

13. Get started early. Start buying Christmas Presents before the Christmas season. Know what your family enjoys. Buy them the little stuff throughout the year. You will find the best deals during the Christmas season, but sometimes you can find clearance at the end of summer or the first of spring that will be better than any other time throughout the year. Buy it when you can get it really cheap.

14. Pay with Cash instead of Charging it on Credit. If you can spend the cash on it, you won’t have the finance charges later on down the road. If you charge it and let it roll over, you can get yourself into debt that can take months, even years to pay off. If that is the case, you will end up paying 2-4 times the original amount for the items.

15. Stay Healthy. Get plenty of exercise. Eat good food. Christmas is a great time to eat a lot of junk. Be mindful of what you are eating. You can gain from a few pounds to a few dozen pounds during the holiday season. If you are not careful, you could find yourself with an immune system that is more interested in fighting your obesity than it is in fighting disease. With the cold weather, that is not a good thing. The less you have to go to the Doctor or spend money on over the counter medicines, the better.

16. Relax and enjoy. People stress themselves out during the holiday season. That is not what it is supposed to be like. Enjoy your season. If you can limit stress, you will be less likely to get sick. You will be happier. You will save money because you won’t make as many mistakes stress tends to bring about.

17. Make your decorations. String some popcorn. Decorate some pinecones. Find fun ways to decorate your home that will not cost you much, if any money.

18. Look up the FREE church Activities in your community. There are thousands of pageants and other entertainment in churches all over the US. All you have to do is find them. Check your local newspaper. Watch the local TV networks. Most of your large churches will run advertising about their programs. The smaller churches will post signs on the side of the roads to let you know what is happening. These activities are cheaper than going to some of the city or state projects.

19. Share movies and music with friends and family. Borrow Christmas movies from your friends and family. They will be glad to lend them to you, especially if you have something they want to watch. This will be better than going to a video store. You won’t have any late charges. If you have to go to a video store, go to the red box at your local Walmart or Grocery store.

20. Make your own list. No one knows what your traditions are for Christmas better than you do. If you can write down what costs you money every year for the Holidays, you will be able to look at those things and change them for this year. Come up with new and inventive ways to save money on each tradition.

Wheee. Christmas time is here again. Can you believe it? It doesn’t feel like it has been that long ago when I took down the decorations. Just this week I put them all back up. Now my house is all blinky like and ready for all the passer-bys.

One of the fun things that I like to do every year is write Christmas cards to all those friends and family members I had neglected over the past year. That’s right, I neglect old friends and family. I am really bad at keeping up with people. I have found that the Christmas card is a perfect way to let those people know how you are doing and let them know that you are actually thinking about them.

Finding the cards can be a challenge sometimes. Writing them can be an even larger challenge. If you have one hundred or more people to send cards to, your hand will be nearly nubs by the time you wrote them all a personal note. I have found that the best way to do the whole card thing is to find a current picture of the family and write the majority of the personal note that will go to everyone and have cards made. This way you will only have one or two lines to write to each person.

How do you do this? Go to VistaPrint and have those Christmas Cards Printed. When you get them back, write a short Note to each person, Sign them and mail them off. It is as easy as that.

1. Go to the store and purchase plain popcorn. If you can find microwave popcorn that is plain (no salt no butter or anything else) that would be the best kind of popcorn to buy. It is the easiest to pop. If you can’t find plain microwave popcorn, buy a bag of traditional popcorn. It will either be in a clear plastic bag or a clear plastic container. I will tell you how to pop this later.
2. Find nylon thread and a needle. You will also need a bowl to put the popcorn and a few friends to help you make popcorn garland.
3. Put on some Christmas music or one of your favorite Christmas time movies. Gather everyone to help you.
4. Pop your popcorn. If it is microwave popcorn, stick it in the microwave and pop it. If you have a popper, this would be the best way to pop the corn because oil is not needed. If you do not have a popper, you can pop the corn on the stove in a pot. Find a deep pot and drizzle some oil in the bottom with about a quarter cup of popcorn cornels. Place the pot on a hot stovetop eye. Continuously slide the pot over the eye, making the cornels move. This will keep the popcorn from burning. Keep moving the pot till the popcorn is done popping. Drop the popcorn into your bowl. For easier stringing, leave the popcorn out for a day or two so it gets stale.
5. String a needle with your nylon thread. The thread should be twice as ling as you want the garland to be. After you thread it through the needle, put the two ends together and tie a knot in the end. You can leave the thread attached to the spool of thread ’til you are done stringing the popcorn, but it won’t be as strong because you won’t be able to double up the thread.

6. You can start the string of popcorn two different ways. The fist is the easiest way. The first way is to just to push the needle through the first piece of popcorn letting it stop at the knot you made. You may need to make sure the knot is big enough that the popcorn doesn’t just go past the knot. To make sure the popcorn doesn’t come off the end of the string; tie the thread through and around the first piece of popcorn (You can use a bead or button to stop the popcord as well). This will insure that all the other pieces you string after that one will not push the first one off.

7. String the rest of the popcorn
8. When you get to the end of the thread, tie a knot around the last piece of popcorn. This will make sure the popcorn stays on the thread.
9. Now you can decorate your Christmas tree with your new popcorn garland.