Worried About Your Holiday Budget? Origin’s Financial Planners Share Their Seasonal Spending Tips

Black Friday and Cyber Monday — the biggest sales periods of the year — are just around the corner. In fact, a bunch of brands have already launched their holiday promotions. While there’s nothing wrong with getting your holiday shopping done early (or waiting for a discount to buy a product you’ve been wanting), it’s easy to get swept away in the holiday spirit and end up spending much more than you planned — on Black Friday and throughout the holiday season. 

So we turned to our team of financial planners here at Origin for some tips on how to responsibly manage your finances going into the holiday season — while still having fun and enjoying the festive spirit. 

Potential mistakes to avoid 

When asked to choose from a long list of holiday-related financial mistakes, our planners overwhelmingly said that the biggest holiday mistakes you can make are: 

1. Overspending on gifts

2. Accumulating high-interest credit card debt

3. Not accounting for non-gift expenses (i.e. travel, parties).  

If you fall into any of these holiday-related traps, they can have long-term consequences. Depending on your financial situation, holiday spending can delay savings goals and increase your overall debt burden, or create a snowball effect on debt that can take months or years to recover from.

Expert-recommended approaches

The good news is that these potential mistakes can be mitigated with planning and budgeting. Our team of financial professionals suggested straightforward ways to help you — and a lot of it’s in the timing. 

Make a gift list and stick to it. That helps you avoid impulsive, unplanned purchases, and means the gift section of your holiday budget will be totally accurate. 

Set a holiday budget early and track your spending. Paul Meaden, an Origin Planner, advises clients to “budget for each day,” and Hetika Ladhani CFP® says that “tracking your spending in real-time ensures you stay within your budget, helping you adjust as needed and avoid post-holiday debt.” 

Your holiday budget should not include just gifts or travel, but incidental purchases, like the extra groceries for your annual cookie-baking extravaganza, or the cost of printing and sending your annual family card. 

Ideally, you shouldn’t just think about holiday spending at this time of the year, says Origin Planner Raunak Mehta: “Like all other financial goals, holiday planning should be an integral part of every family's financial strategy. By treating it as a priority, you can ensure a stress-free holiday without financial strain.”

Start shopping early. Beginning your gift scouting as early as possible gives you a sense of the general price range of what you plan to buy — which means you’ll be able to spot a sale when it comes up.  

Remember: Sales aren’t always what they seem.

Have you ever wondered how brands are able to give such steep discounts on so many items? Well, when it comes to sales, the devil’s always in the details.

According to data from 2021, 98% of products that were on sale on Black Friday at big retailers like Amazon were the same price or cheaper at some other point throughout the year, the BBC reported. 

Sure, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not getting a deal — those lower prices throughout the year might also have been sales. But keep in mind that, no matter what the advertisement messaging is, you’re not always getting the best prices of the year on Black Friday. 

Plus, according to the personal finance experts over at the Motley Fool, “Retailers can slap any old price tag on a given item and then mark it down so that it looks like you're getting a bargain.” 

So remember: Brands aren’t always being 100% honest with you. Maybe this info makes a difference for your purchasing habits, maybe it doesn’t — but you should keep it in mind. 

How we can help

If following all this advice sounds a bit overwhelming, don’t worry: With Origin, you can easily set a holiday budget and track your spending. We connect to all your accounts and pull all that data into one place, so you have maximum visibility into how your spending is stacking up. We give you updates, showing how you’re tracking against your monthly budget, and also allow you to create custom holiday budget categories, which helps you see specifically how much the holidays impact your spending.

And once the hustle and bustle of the holidays has died down, Origin will be there to help you gain insights and plan longer-term. It’s super easy to set up a meeting with our planners so that you can review your finances holistically and start 2025 on the right financial footing. 

These are a lot of do’s and don’ts that will help you financially in the short- and long run — but the point of having healthy finances is so that you can enjoy your life. As Jochen Blaskowitz CFP® put it when talking about big-picture financial planning, “You should not only think about retirement and the future,” but remember “the here and now and spend some of the money on consumption and experiences.” Don’t forget to enjoy the holiday season!

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