As the holiday season nears, the excitement of the upcoming festivities is building up as well. After all, who doesn’t feel the holiday cheer when buying, giving and receiving gifts; seeing and spending time with family and friends; hearing Christmas carols being played or simply seeing the streets all lit up with bright lights at night?
But along with this comes the inevitable stress as traffic gets worse, malls get more crowded with shoppers, managing your schedule to accommodate invitations for a Holiday get-together from family and friends gets tiring, and keeping in line with your budget and spending gets trickier—all of which dampens the holiday cheer.
“With the holiday season right around the corner, we’d like to remind everyone to learn how to budget and spend wisely. Though we’d like to express our love for our family and friends by giving gifts, it’s also important for us to always set aside some of our money as savings for our future or for emergency purposes. You’ll never know when you’ll need it,” said PSBank Senior Vice President and Marketing Group Head Emmanuel A. Tuazon.
PSBank is here to share some tips on simple ways to manage your finances this holiday season:
- Make a list of things to buy. Identify the people whom you will be giving gifts to and what gifts to buy them. Having a shopping list will definitely make things easier for you. With a Christmas checklist in hand, not only will it prevent you from missing important people in your life but it will also enable you to organize your budget better.
- Set a budget and stick to it. Set a budget for each item in your shopping list. Having a budget that you know you must stick to will help keep you from impulse spending. PSBank offers PSBank Debit and Prepaid Mastercard for an easy way to control your finances as it lets you spend only up to the available balance in your account. This will allow you to spend within your means while effectively allocating your budget for your various financial needs.
- Check out Christmas bazaars and mall sales. Make the most out of the discounts you can enjoy in different bazaars and holiday sales this season. For those who’d much rather not join the holiday mall crowd, online shopping is another option. Some banks offer exclusive online shopping deals that shoppers should take advantage of. Maximizing perks from banks will not only allow you to enjoy better deals but also end up with more savings. PSBank currently has an existing partnership with ZALORA where PSBank Debit and Prepaid MasterCard cardholders will enjoy an exclusive 12% off when they shop on ZALORA. The promo will run until December 31, 2016.
- Maximize the digital banking services of your bank. While traffic, long lines, and crowded malls are already part of the country’s Yuletide celebration, being aware of these problems means you have partially won the battle. During these times, it is advisable to do your banking transactions via the electronic banking services of your bank.
PSBank in particular offers PSBank Online and PSBank Mobile that lets you pay bills, transfer funds, reload your mobile phone, and more— whenever and wherever you are.
- Lock your PSBank cards. Since incidences of theft or fraud (both online and in person) tend to increase during this time of the year, PSBank encourages its PSBank Debit and Prepaid Mastercard cardholders to lock their cards using the ATM Lock feature via PSBank Online or Mobile app. The PSBank ATM Lock empowers cardholders by giving them an additional layer of protection against unauthorized use of their ATM card, arising from ATM loss, theft, skimming, and other forms of electronic fraud.
