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:
- Overspending on gifts
- Accumulating high-interest credit card debt
- 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!
Answers to your questions
Yes. Origin offers partner access so you can manage your finances together at no additional cost. You’ll be able to filter transactions by member—making it easy to see which spending is yours and which belongs to your partner.
Yes. You can edit existing transactions and add new ones directly in Origin, so your records stay accurate and personalized.
Origin connects securely through trusted partners including Plaid, MX, and Mastercard.
Yes. Origin supports CSV uploads. You can upload a .csv file of your transactions, and we’ll import them into your account.
Yes. Your data is protected with bank-level security and advanced encryption. When you connect accounts through Origin, your login credentials are never shared with us. Instead, our partners generate secure tokens that let Origin access only the data you authorize—keeping your personal information private while enabling personalized insights.
Yes. You have full control to organize your spending in Origin. Transactions are automatically categorized by Origin, but you can always edit categories, add your own tags, and filter transactions however you like—so your spending reflects the way you actually manage money.
