With the holidays upon us, many families are looking forward to celebrating with loved ones and putting 2020 behind them.
But with so many people impacted by the pandemic, one credit counsellor says we should focus on having a “credit-free Christmas.”
John Eisner with Credit Counselling Services of Atlantic Canada said this is especially important since we do not yet know what next year will bring.
“Next year, I think there’s going to be a lot of problems for those that have received government assistance, CERB money, because they probably didn’t plan for the income tax man next year,” said Eisner, the president and CEO.
“There’s a lot of people that took that money thinking they perhaps should have taken it and maybe they didn’t fit the bill and they’re going to have to pay it back.”
The company has started to see a spike of insolvencies and Eisner said it is only going to get worse in the new year.
Eisner said it is easy to get caught up in wanting to spend a little extra money on friends and family after this year, but he said this type of spending will only have negative effects.
“I’ve heard conversations ‘well, I’m going to do more this Christmas because of the year we had’ and I wouldn’t recommend that because we don’t know from the economy side next year what that really is going to look like,” he said.
To ensure your Christmas is a credit-free one, Eisner offered several ways to celebrate the holidays with little to no money.
He suggested giving homemade gifts or offering up your time and service instead of buying people something they do not necessarily need.
“If you’ve got brothers and sisters and they’ve got little ones, why not give them one day of babysitting, you’ll take care of the children for a day,” said Eisner.
Eisner said you can also send out free e-cards instead of a traditional holiday card by mail, which can become expensive and time-consuming.
He also suggested doing a Secret Santa if you have a large extended family, which each person only buys for one other person instead of everyone.
“At the end of the day, with everything we’ve been through this year, it’s more important I think to really think about who’s around the tree than really what’s under it.”
Follow
