Not sure if you’ve heard the news but – the Holiday season is upon us!
We’ve quickly been thrown into the purchasing, wrapping and other preparations that surround us at this time of year. With each year that passes I always vow that “I’ll be better prepared next year”. A great aspiration but, by the time the next Christmas season rolls around, I’m usually back in the same crunch that I always find myself in.
Not this year! This year, I promised to make a conscious effort to make it a little less stressful and a little more magical without the post-Christmas financial hangover. We started our shopping earlier than we normally do – allowing us to put thought into what we are buying for everyone and spread the spending out over several months.
I also enlisted the help of technology.
Too often, we wonder around the mall with a mental list of the people to check-off the and, worse, only a mental tally of the money we’ve spent.
This year, I downloaded an application onto my iPhone called ‘Holiday Shopping List’. It’s just one of the many available in the App Store. This handy little addition has allowed me to build our list, assign individual budgets for each person, categorize folks, make notes as we shop and keep a running tally of what we’ve spent (both individually and in total).It also allows you to mark a person as ‘finished’ – one of my most favorite features!
Now, as we shop, I have a current list in my pocket. No more scribbles on paper for us! I love this application. It’s allowed me to keep a really accurate tally on our status of what’s left to do and what we have left to spend. For once, I’m in control of Christmas Shopping and not the other way around.
Such a little thing has made a big difference! With our shopping in a good place – it’s left us time to actually enjoy the time leading up to the big day. We’ve been watching holiday movies, baking cookies, checking out the Christmas lights – who knew that the pre-Christmas weeks could be so fun!
Happy preparing!
- jenn
