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Don't bust the budget this holiday season: Mom Squad with 3News' Maureen Kyle

Many people overspend during the holiday months, which leads to headaches in January. A financial planner tells us how to plan ahead and avoid spending pitfalls.

CLEVELAND — Household budgets are getting tighter as we spend more money on the necessities, which means, we might not be spreading as much holiday cheer this year.

A survey from Deloitte shows Americans plan to spend just as much as they did last year, which is about $1,455 dollars per household. But that money won't get you as far. Shoppers said they'd buy an average of nine gifts this year, compared to an average of 16 last year.

It's going to be easy to bust the budget, but Kathryn Bryan, a financial planner with Skylight Financial Group, says, it's not too late to plan.

“So, the first step would be just to really figure out what is going to come into the household for income in November and December, really figure out what you need for savings and try to put that away first, and then really pay your expenses, and then whatever is left over really should be for gifts,” said Bryan.

“Now, I'm a mom of two, so I know that doesn't always work out as well. So, if you don't, and you have to use a credit card, or you have to put something on debt, make sure you're using a low interest, or zero interest credit card and I always recommend using just one. It gets to be like, we put a little on this one and a little on this one, and we overspend and don't even realize it,” Bryan said.

Bryan says one of the reasons we overspend is due to emotional purchases. We want to make the holidays magical and spend on things that are “traditions," which can easily be cut out of the budget.

To hear the entire conversation about how to budget and also how to set gifting boundaries within your own family, tune into WKYC+ on your Roku or Fire TV devices. You can also find the entire episode in the player below:

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