“I know I’m going to be setting a budget so I don’t suffer after the holidays,” says Christine Whelan, clinical professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She makes a list of those she needs to buy gifts for and assigns a spending cap for each person’s gift.Part of that strategy means limiting purchases to what she can comfortably afford out of savings instead of turning to credit card debt, Whelan says. “One of the ways we can use our limited resources to maximize our happiness is to pay now, rather than get socked with a credit card bill in February, which undermines our financial and emotional well-being.”
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