Obviously, the first thing on this list is Christmas… although it comes around every year, it doesn’t come around every month. We have been planning for Christmas all year. We have been putting aside money each month so that when Christmas rolls around, we won’t go farther into debt to pay for it. So far, so good. We won’t pay down our debt by much this month, but we won’t add to it either, and that is a win in my book. In previous years, we have added to our debt by as much as $2500 during the months of November and December. The goal this year is to not increase our debt. Anything we payoff in the next 4 weeks is a plus!

Along with Christmas in general, we have a huge Christmas party every year. It’s an open house and we invite about 100 – 115 people. We usually see about 75 people on this day. We have already bought a lot of the food but still have some stuff to buy. This should be covered by our grocery budget. We give a favor every year and this year I decided to make candied nuts. We have jars that I bought at Winco about 6 years ago that I am finally going to use. Because we already have the jars, the favors will probably cost us about $1.50 each. We give out 1 per family, so I will make 30-35 jars worth. The “leftovers” I give to people at work.

I haven’t actually written about this here, but I think I’ve alluded to it. I am taking an 11 day trip to England with my mom. We leave mid-December and return right before Christmas so we will be home for the holiday. My mom is 82 and has always wanted to be in London at Christmas time. (She has been to London several times, but never in winter.) My school schedule lined up with us going this year and it is one of her “bucket list” items so we are going. I have already paid my airfare. We got a pretty good deal at $867 roundtrip. Our hotel will be charged right before we leave and I have been saving for that and will have the full amount when we leave. I will just need to pay for food and any spending money. I have saved and set aside $600 for this. I don’t know if that will be enough, but it’s a good starting point at least.

This is all I can think of for our unusual spending for December… and it’s going to be expensive! The goal is to cash flow and not add to our debt!