Today is the final meeting of the 2019 Christmas Savings Club!
On the 25th of every month from January to November in 2019, I held a virtual meeting on the blog to give updates on our progress, motivate one another, and help all of us save for a cash Christmas. The club was open to anyone who wanted monthly accountability to save for a cash Christmas.
If you’ve been following along since January 25, 2019, we’ve been working all year to set aside money each month to have a cash Christmas.
My monthly savings goal was $100. This should cover my tentative 2019 Christmas budget that I based on what we spent in 2018. I challenged myself to find the cash outside of our budget. However by late summer, I found it easier to set aside the money directly from our budget. It became a habit.
Here’s a recap of the variety of ways I’ve found the money since February:
- In February, I received a check from Ebates for $40.92. This is money I earned from my Christmas shopping last year, so it’s appropriate that I apply it to my Christmas savings. Read: My Ebates (now Rakuten) Review
- Also, in February, I received a check of $45 from a family member who was reimbursing us from a group gift that we took care of over the holidays. I added the check to our savings.
- In March, I added $70 in $1 bills that I had been setting aside for the past year. Last year, a friend of mine on Facebook shared that she saves $1 bills that have Federal Reserve letters that match the first letter of her kids’ names. I thought that was an interesting way to save, so I started collecting $1 with C, J, K, L. I had amassed $70 and thought it was a perfect addition to our Christmas account.
- In April, we received a small tax refund and I put $100 of our refund into our Christmas Savings account. It was a pretty easy month to find the cash.
- In May, I made money from a yard sale and put $50 towards our Christmas savings. I also earned $20 from Ibotta and $7 from Ebates, and found $23 within our May budget.
- In June, I was rather uncreative and pulled the $100 from our monthly budget.
- In July, I found $20 bill on the beach while camping, and other $80 came out of our monthly budget.
- In August & September, I found the money within our monthly budget.
- In October, I found the money from an insurance refund and from the sale of our pop-up camper.
- In November, I found the money within our budget.
Going forward:
At this point in the year, our monthly Christmas savings became a habit and is an automatic line item in our budget. It will continue to be a regular part of our monthly budget going forward. Also, after the holidays, I’ll reassess what we actually spent this year and make any changes to our monthly savings amount of $100.
I really enjoy challenged myself for creative ways to find extra money this year. I’ll continue to do so to help pad the account.
It feels really good to have our savings ready to go for a cash Christmas and I have already started to do a little shopping.
Did you follow along with this year’s monthly challenge? I’d love to hear about your results. Share in the comments.
