Beginning to look a lot like Christmas, jack. Which means plenty of trees, lights, cold temperatures and presents. The bad news? Lots of credit cards jumping around out there. Joes and jills everywhere are choosing plastic over paper when they go Christmas shopping. Let me clue everybody in; that ain't the way to go. The only thing credit card spending does is make you dread starting off the next year, when you get the bill in January.

I started saving up the cash for the holidays back in the summer. Saved a little bit at a time for a long time. By the time cold weather hits, the dough is burning a hole in my pocket. It's the coolest thing to save the extra cash, pay for something and be done with it. So how do you do that? Simple, simon ... make a personal budget, save a little at a time, and you're in. Dave Ramsey gives tips like this all the time, and he's on the money.