Budgeting for Christmas

This year I am trying to stick to a $500 budget for all of my Christmas shopping. I recently read that spending 1.5% of your income is a reasonable amount (if you can do it without going in to debt). For me 1.5%would be over $1,500. That is more than I want to spend this year given my desire to get out of debt. Anyway, I would have to take on additional debt to spend that money because I don’t want to take it out of my savings.
Most of my shopping gets done online and I have been very good about taking advantage of the various free shipping offers. So far I have not paid any shipping charges :) I really like how Amazon.com ships for free if you spend more than $50. I think that is very reasonable. Last year according to my Quicken records I spent $1,247 plus another $950 or so for a combination Christmas and birthday gift for my dad. I bought him a flat screen TV. I just hope that I did not set up any unrealistic expectations for his gift this year.