How I Pay for Christmas with CashBack

by Sahirenys Pierce December 15, 2021

by Sahirenys Pierce

How I don’t save for Christmas with cashback credit cards is a thing. My cashback Christmas Budget has made saving up for Christmas is a thing of the past. Especially, when you use your credit cards cashback with purpose. Instead of using my cashback on random expenses, I’ve decided to use it to fund my Christmas Budget. By using my Amex’s cashback I am able to relieve the stress of saving up for the holidays. I’ve been using this strategy for the past 3 years and here is what I’ve learned.

How I use to Save for Christmas

Saving up for Christmas can easily be done by using a sinking fund. You decide on how much you want to spend for Christmas, which includes gifts, decorations, and extra splurges. This might be $300, $500, or even $1000, it’s honestly up to you. Once you’ve decided on how much your Christmas budget is, you then break this goal into bite-size pieces. This is a great go-to strategy to save up for Christmas. But what if there is an even easier way to create a Christmas budget and save for it.

Use your CashBack with Purpose

For me, I love traveling, but I like the flexibility of having my credit card perks in cash even more. So getting a credit card with cashback was ideal for me and my family’s goals. But like I said in the intro, I didn’t want to spend the cash back on random things. I wanted to use my cashback with purpose, so I designated all of my credit card cashback for one major purpose, Christmas. You can decide to use the cash back for travel, gifts, home decor, or whatever you like. I personally use my cashback to buy gifts for my kids and family during the holidays.

Setting a Christmas Budget

When it comes to setting a budget for Christmas, it always seems like the budget can be whatever you want. Which is great, but can also be harmful if you have a lot of other financial goals. To control our urge to consistently increase our Christmas budget. We’ve allowed the accumulation of our cashback to dictate how much we can spend. This allows my family, to spend all of our cashback without feeling guilty about how much money we spend for the holidays.

My CashBack Credit Card

There are a lot of credit cards that offer great cashback perks. I personally use my American Express Blue Preferred Cash Back credit card. This card offers me 6% cashback on my groceries up to $6,000 a year. Plus 3% cashback on gas, which has been great due to inflation and the supply shortage on gas. This Amex does charge an annual fee of $95 a year, but with all the cashback that I get it pretty much pays for itself.

Avoiding Credit Card Debt

Once I learned how to manage my finances with the High-5 Banking Method. Using my credit card to take advantage of all the perks didn’t seem so scary. On the contrary, because I already had the money I was planning on spending in my bank account. My confidence in using credit cards increased because I knew I wouldn’t be falling into debt over my purchases.

Closing Thoughts

Repurposing your credit card’s cash back to help you achieve a goal is a great way to relieve your financial stress. I know saving up for Christmas and staying on budget is easier said than done. This is why this cashback strategy has been so ideal for my finances during the holidays. Because the last thing you want to do is go into debt and waste your credit card perks on nothing valuable. Instead, use your cashback with purpose and responsibly.