Time to celebrate without breaking your piggy bank

Christmas is less than three weeks away. So it's time to celebrate ... and to spend.

Christmas can be very costly. You can find a way to buy presents and keep your friends happy even if you don't have a lot of money.

Shopping list: Don't get carried away when you see beautifully packaged gifts. Before you go shopping, draw up a list of the people you want to buy presents for.

Exercise self-control. Only buy what's on your list.

Anticipate: Presents are not the only things you have to spend on. To calculate how much you want to spend on presents, first do a budget for all your expenses.

Budget: After you have decided how much you want to spend on presents, divide your total budget for presents by the number of people on your list.