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· Posted on
February 21, 2024

2 hacks to keep your Christmas spending under control

And how can your spending help you budget for Christmas gifts?

What's the key learning?

  • When it comes to gift-giving this holiday season - there are two simple tricks to help you figure out how much you want to spend
  • The 'hours-worked' method puts your hourly wage into the context of the gift you're purchasing
  • The 'cost-per-use' method takes the cost of your gift, divided by the number of uses that someone will get from it.

This Christmas, Aussies are set to spend an average of $1,232 - with nearly $400 of that on gifts alone (Holy smokes!). 

But have you ever wondered how much you should spend on a present for your S.O? Or your bestie? Is $50 enough? Too much?! Not enough?! Arghhh.. It’s all too hard.

When it comes to gift-giving this holiday season - the are two simple tricks to help you figure out how much you want to spend:

  1. The hours-worked method
  2. The cost-per-use method

These methods put your friends or family members into….uhhh...perspective?

The ‘hours-worked’ method 

All you need to do is:

  1. Figure out what your hourly rate is at your job
  2. Put it into the context of the gift you’re purchasing.

So, if you earn $20, purchasing a $50 present means working for 2.5 hours. 

When deciding how much you should spend on gifts, keep this figure in mind. Your mum might be worth 20 hours-worked, but that mate that forgot to pay you back for that round of beers may only be worth 1. 

The cost-per-use method

Rather than thinking about bagging bargains, consider the cost-per-use method. 

All you need to do is:

  1. Figure out the cost of the item
  2. Divide it by the number of uses you think you (or who you’re buying it for) will get from it.

Buying a brand new fancy blazer that costs $170 but only getting 15 wears out of it works out to around $11.33 per wear.

Buying a new activewear set for $100 and wearing it 300 times works out to around 33 cents per wear. Now that’s a steal.

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