If you do, how do you deal with the after holiday stress when the bills start coming in?

There was a time we into debt for Christmas. Now I buy good sales as the year goes on and put away. I find out sizes of the kids and start shopping sales a couple of months before Christmas. Basically, I try to pay $25 for a $50 gift. We do not use CC anymore, with me not working, it just can not be that way. There are times that does not work, but we do have some saving put up just for Christmas to finish up.

we also used to use credit cards but not anymore we have used cash only for the last 3 years and its so much less stressful plus i don't tend to overbuy this way. i also buy all year round for gifts if i find a great sale.

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Noooo...I would never do that. I save each week towards Christmas, all year round. Been doing that since college...the amt has changed, but the principal is the same. Works great for me.

This is the first year that I actually saved the money for Christmas. We would use the credit card (which included some presents, travel to my Dad's house, and boarding the dog). I planned to use tax refund money to pay it off. This year, we can use the tax refund money to pay down our mortgage.

I would like to get away from spending SOOOO much at Christmas. Actually, we don't spend as much as the average household, but it is still MUCH, MUCH more than our regular spending . . . . It kind of takes the fun out of Christmas to be stressed about the costs!

Marlene

I have in the past. I don't stress about the bills, I just work on paying them. This year dh told me we should start taking several hundred from my salary (new job) and start paying down the credit cards. Now I am all for that, but I told him we should hold off until after Christmas (and 2 kids Dec birthdays) so that we did not resort to using those credit cards for Christmas.

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We usually charge all our christmas gifts on CC, just as we do almost all our purchases year round. Last year I probably bought at LEAST half of my christmas gifts online, so would have to use a CC. But we still always pay the bill off when it comes in Jan. I think there's only been one time we couldn't pay the whole bill, and we paid it in full then in Feb. I would hate to buy a bunch of stuff and then still be paying for it months later.

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No. We save all year for Christmas. Last year was an exception and I am not going down that road again.

No. I think there's only been one year we did that. It was a very nice Christmas, and all was paid off without a problem, but I would never want to do it again. The only exception is one company we have an account with where I pay no interest, to ship things to my parents. However, I don't use it at all in lean years. We and the parents don't really exchange anyway. It's always been like once we move out, they don't have to buy us birthday or xmas gifts anymore, so I don't get guilted into sending them things anymore. Well, I take that back...my mom does, but my dad doesn't, nor do dh's parents.

So, no. We don't do Christmas on credit.

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We do the same as Aliadam, we charge everything and pay the bill every month. We do this all year long for the rewards points.

I don't consider that "financing" with credit cards since we have the cash already to pay the bills.

I guess the question should really have been "Do you finance Christmas with credit cards when you don't have the cash to pay them off?"