How to Have Better Financial Health in the New Year

Do you still recall last year's holiday hangover? Christmas was amazing, wasn't it? Your husband loved receiving those golf clubs he had been drooling over for months. Perhaps your wife was ecstatic, because that second honeymoon in the Virgin Islands was now a definite go, with tickets in hand? Wow, and the kids They must be bonkers about their flat-panel TV's, because in the past year you've only seen them when they surface to feed. Yup, a great Christmas it was.....until the first bill arrived in the mail. Same time it does every month, but this time, thicker than usual. Same with the next one, the following day. For the next six months, you work to thin those regularly-arriving statements as much as possible.

If the mental pain brought on by the arrival of thickening bills is becoming too much to bear, then you can do one of two things:

Go paperless........but that doesn't solve the problem. Or, follow a couple steps listed below to help break the depressing cycle of holiday financial over-consumption.

1) Try to stay at home, or as local as possible during the holidays. The cost of food, fuel, and lodging can be astronomical for a family. There's a reason hotels charge so much during the holidays, and it's definitely not for a lack of customers. Eliminating gifts and opting for a family trip together will still leave you in debt quite easily, especially if you choose to fly. Caveat.

2) Don't attempt to deliver the motherload of gifts on Christmas day. This routinely leaves families without, while they're attempting to play catch-up during the entire following year. Once the credit cards are finally paid down, Christmas is looming again. Due to the family going without treats and surprises throughout the year, you feel increasingly compelled to set new holiday spending records yet again. Eventually, paypack time is going to last well past the following Christmas. Then what?