Although many employers distribute December's salary earlier during the holiday season to cover any Christmas and other holiday expenses, this typically leaves many people stretched for cash by the time January hits.
Therefore, consumers have been encouraged to spend wisely during the festive season in order to make their salary last until the new year.
With most December pay checks hitting bank accounts any day now, finance expert Maya Fisher-French, says that the best thing to do with your December salary is to first pay all of those January bills and back to school expenses.
Given the ongoing cost of living crisis having an impact on everyone's finances, many households are unable to keep up with all their monthly expenses as it is, this is why many people are now opting to take out extra credit and pay day loans to cover all the extra holiday expenses.
“One of the credit bureau’s was telling me that in April, they see the heightened levels of defaults and you only going to default if you’ve missed three payments in a row, so people are taking out a loan in the festive season and not repaying them,” says Fisher-French.
Maya say’s that it is a really difficult time for many people and the only way around it is to plan ahead and make smart decisions.
“Don’t go and spend all your money, first pay all the bills. If you’ve got school fees, school uniform and stationery coming up in January buy and pay for them now.”
Debit orders usually go off later in the month and often people spend all their money on holiday expenses and end up with no money to pay for end of month bills.
Maya advises consumers to transfer any money that is scheduled to be debited at the end of the month into a savings account in order to keep those funds separate and then transfer the money back into their main account just in time for debit orders to go off.
Consumers are also encouraged to be smart with any bonus or 13th cheques some will be receiving during this time of the year.
Fisher-French suggests that people use any extra money received sensibly by settling any debt or store accounts they may have, which will allow them to have additional funds to save during the new year.
