Let the Holiday Budget Beatings Commence: Holiday Cards as Financial Armor

Now that Halloween is behind us, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year celebrations are locked, loaded, and aimed at our wallets. This being trying economic times (depending on where in the economy you find yourself, that is) many will be tempted to pretend like the holidays don't exist, but my strategy will be to keep up my usual level of participation and seek out savings opportunities instead.

Holiday Cards are one thing I don't normally do. I prefer to go and see the people I might send a card to instead. That may not be feasible this year, but sending a card in lieu of a visit would at least maintain the connections I have with those folks. Vistaprint can hook me up with 20 cards with a photo of myself printed on them for under $20. Plus the cost of postage and I would be able to let my family and friends know that they're in my thoughts without spending nearly as much as I would on fuel and auto maintenance. Vistaprint makes the process easy by providing for online upload and creation of a custom card all on their website with shipping options that can accommodate your forethought or your procrastination. Since you can do all of this from the comfort of your home, you also avoid one other dreaded aspect of the holiday shopping season: crowds.

The holidays can sometimes resemble the ironic saying, "the beatings will continue until morale improves" - you frequently have to spend, spend, spend and come out happy anyway. Done right, however, this can be a time of the year where you can have your fruit cake and eat it, too (and you can have mine - I hate fruit cake).