The Holidays Aren’t Over Until You Pay The Bill
The Christmas season officially ended yesterday. At least it did for me, and for two reasons. First, I finally ventured out to return a few gifts. But most importantly, I paid the bill.
With the exception of a few items, I did all of my Christmas shopping online, including the gifts for my wife. She also purchased a couple of gifts for me online. Because we reconcile the checking account together several times a week, had we used our debit card we could have seen the retailers from which gifts were purchased before presents were opened. To get around this, we agreed to use a single joint line of credit to purchase all our gifts. This included not only our gifts to each other, but also our gifts for our son, as well as other family members and friends.
Because of the timing of when in the month the statement is generated, this is the first payment on the line of credit due that includes our Christmas purchases. We had a budget, and discussed what we were purchasing for each person except for each other. Now that Christmas is over, and the bill is due, I simply paid the balance in full.
Paying the balance in full felt great.
We had stayed extremely close to our budget, and had the money ready to be applied to the balance due.
- $956 to Citibank
- $242 to Kohls
As you’ve likely noticed, we used as second line of credit. There were some things we wanted to purchase at Kohls because they were on sale, and we had a 30% off coupon (the only way to buy things at Kohls!).
It feels good to close the books on Christmas 2014. No Holiday debt to chip away at month after month, and no regrets!
Have you paid your holiday bill? If not, how long do you think it will take to do so?
Brought to you courtesy of Brock
Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children, Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.
Keeping costs under control is always a great idea. Back when my family was pretty poor, we’d just spend some frugal holidays and it was OK. My folks would NEVER consider getting into debt to get us presents or ‘have fun’. Now, that I’m a grown up, I don’t spend recklessly either. We do get what’s needed, but we don’t spend too much money. And, again, we’d never consider debt to finance our holiday, that’s for sure.
@Dojo – great words to live by. Honestly, we’ve put gifts on credit cards in the past, and ended up paying interest on the debt while we paid it off. As we’ve gotten older it just doesn’t make sense to us anymore. Making payments on things for a holiday that’s over isn’t nay fun!! Thanks for your comment!