商业报道:Holiday budget（在线收听）

Holiday budget

CNN's Gerri Willis offers tips on how to manage your holiday budget

Almost 3 in 5 people won’t plan a holiday budget this year don’t fall into this trap. First you will need to figure out how much you should spend on gifts. You wanna make sure you can pay off your bills in one to two months. Since some financial planner recommend that you not spend more than 1.5% of your annual income on gifts, figure out all your expenses like those decorations or holiday meals and check out the website called christmasorganizer.com. On this site you can download holiday planner forms, gifts lists and calendars. Catherine?

Yeah, those eating out bills can really add up, can’t they? Thinking outside the box too, a good idea when giving gifts.

Well, you know, who needs another sweater or crockpot right? You don’t know where's the need to spend a ton of dough on gifts.you can curb all these last-minute-give impulses by giving a donation to charity in the name of a friend or relative, check out charitynavigator.org. So you are gonna valuate and choose a legit charity. But you may also wanna give your friends and family the gift of experience, maybe you wanna send your in-laws up in a hot air balloon, and you can even send your brother to cooking class, check out xperiencedays.com and signaturedays.com. You can even have a day as James Bond, Catherine.

That is a good idea. Alright, now another idea is to compare prices and really it’s easier to do that these days, isn’t it?

Absolutely, you know you can save time and money by shopping online plus you don’t get tempted by those impulse purchases. Do some Comparison shopping, go to shopping.com and bizrate.com. These sites let you compare products and deals plus if you do decide to shop online you can often get free shipping, yes, free shipping.

And speaking of comparing prices, you just should also shop around for some good cards out there.

Well, you know, if you don’t carry a credit card balance from month to month and you have good credit score, getting a rewards card is a great idea, but get the details you may only be able to use your card as specific merchants, plus some cards are tier. This means the more you spend the more you earn. Here are some favorites from creditcardratings.com discovers more card and blue cash from American express. You can check out the terms of these cards and many others at creditcardratings.com. And of course if you have a question, send it to us at toptips @CNN.com. We'd love hearing from you.

Catherine?

Alright, Gerri, thank you very much.

Notes:

Crockpot: A famous brand of electric pot in the US.

Dough: (Slang) Money

几乎五分之三的人不会对节假日预算作出详细计划。千万不要落入陷阱。首先，你必须弄清楚礼物方面的花销是多少。你可能希望确保在一到两个月之间付清账单。一些理财计划者建议在礼物方面的花费不要超过年收入的1.5%，弄清装饰，节日聚餐等等方面的所有费用，详情可登录christmasorganizer.com了解。在这个网站你可以下载节日计划者表格，礼物清单和日历。Catherine？

是的，所有外出就餐的账单可以相加，是吗？还可以考虑一下盒子的问题，送礼物的时候装在盒子里比较不错。

你知道，谁需要羊毛衫或者克罗克电锅？你知道，完全没必要在礼物方面花费如此多的金钱。你可以克制所有这些冲动，可以以朋友或者亲戚的名义向慈善机构捐款。但是可能你也想送给朋友或者家人一些全新的体验，可能你想带家人去美发沙龙，也可以送自己的弟弟去烹饪班学习，可以登录xperiencedays.com和signaturedays.com来了解详细情况。你甚至可以度过像 James Bond那样的一天，Catherine。

好主意。好的，另外一个建议是货比三家。现在这样做更加容易，不是吗？

绝对是，你知道，现在通过网络购物可以节省时间和金钱，同时还可以避免冲动购物。要对比购物，可以登录shopping.com and bizrate.com。这些网站为你提供多种多样的货物供你挑选。而且，如果决定网上购物，经常可以享受免费运送的服务。

说到对比价格，或许你可以使用一些比较好的购物卡。

你知道，如果你的信用卡不是每个月都有盈余，如果信用状况良好，可以申请奖励卡。但是必须了解一些细节，因为可能你只能在特定的商店使用，你消费的越多获得的奖励越多。在creditcardratings.com上列出了一些最受消费者喜爱的信用卡。可以登录creditcardratings.com来了解这些信用卡的条款和其他详细情况。当然，如果你有问题，可以发送邮件到toptips @CNN.com。期待您的来函。Catherine?

好的，Gerri，非常感谢。