The holiday season may turn out be a trapping for many credit card abusers. After all, what better reasons there are if not to use credit cards to buy presents for your loved ones? Individuals who may have experienced overwhelming credit card debts up to a point that they would have to seek the help of debt management companies or agencies like Freedom Debt Relief may actually be more aware of the dangers of credit cards during the holiday seasons. You may even think that you may only be maxing your credit cards out once a year and you would have another whole year to pay for your credit card debts. However, doing so may cause more harm to your credit rating than good.

Experts may advice that if you have had to go through debt counseling you would do well to avoid using your credit cards during the holiday seasons to avoid owing your credit card companies more money. Generally you may already have a balance on your credit cards so adding to the balance may only add to the debt. The more balance you have on your credit card the more interest you may have to pay. So you may actually end up spending more than you paid for your presents with cash. This is also because you may not have a physical sign to tell you to stop spending. If you shop with cash, once the cash start to run out you may start to be more cautious with what you spend your money on and look for better value for your money. This is why many experts would suggest that you do your Christmas shopping with cash.

Generally, if you shop on a budget you may be more mindful of the amount you spend so that you will not run out of money and also you may be concentrating to buy presents for those who are really dear to you instead of for the entire village. This may be another good reason for you to give up using credit cards altogether during the holiday season so you can avoid maxing out your credit card or charge more than you can actually afford. You may also do this if you are shopping with your credit cards but you may be more tempted to spend more as you may be more likely to make up more excuses for yourself or for your purchases. Before you know it you probably would have used the phrase “just this once” more than once.

In order to avoid having to use credit cards during the holiday season you might want to consider doing something the old-fashioned way which is to save up for your Christmas presents. Christmas comes only once a year so you may have all year to put aside some money every month until December. It may not have to be much as it is the thoughts that count. You may need to learn to buy presents that are within your spending capabilities. Expensive purchases may be beyond your means so you may have to learn to find good deals and discounts to be able to purchase your presents in cash. You may find it difficult to physically save up some money every week or month for Christmas so you may want to consider joining a Christmas club offered by smaller community banks. The bank generally may deduct from your paycheck automatically into a special Christmas club account and come Christmas sale; the money may be transferred into your regular checking account so you may use the money for your Christmas shopping.

The idea of foregoing credit cards altogether when shopping for Christmas present may seem extreme to some but extreme situations call for extreme measures. If you have been in overwhelming debts before you probably would not want to end up in the same situation all over again. So it may be rather difficult when it comes to executing the plan but you may thank yourself in the long run for holding yourself back and keeping your credit cards on ice.

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Category: Finances
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