Hark! Those angels are going to sing whether we're ready or not.
At the moment it may be hard to hear them - Christmas is close to three months away. One thing's for sure, though: however you celebrate that beautiful time of year, it will be here before we know it.
So what can we do ahead of time before we ring it all in? The goal is to avoid as much high-interest credit card debt as possible (and that "morning after" headache that comes in late January when you see your statement). That's the sort of debt that's a drag on your finances and makes it harder to get ahead.
Interest rates for credit cards and their even-more-costly cousins, store cards, have remained stubbornly high, despite plunging interest rates everywhere else. That money is expensive!
The Reserve Bank reported last week that New Zealanders are still carrying credit card balances of close to four billion dollars that we get charged interest on. And at an average interest rate of 17.8%, that means we all paid around $58,932,833 in interest - in just a month.