3 tech hacks to help you manage your holiday spending this year

Planning ahead for the holiday season will help you stay on budget—but who actually does that? We’re much more likely to white-knuckle our way through December, buying things when we think of them, and letting money be a problem for our 2025 selves to deal with.

But this method of celebrating the holidays isn’t merry or bright. According to Credit Karma, 49% of Americans feel more financial stress during the holiday season compared to the rest of the year.

Thankfully, modern solutions can help solve these traditional holiday problems. Letting technology do the hardest parts of planning will help you lower your costs and your stress this holiday season.

Try a gift list mobile app

Gifts are often the biggest line item in your holiday spending. This is partially because very few of us make an actual budget for presents. Instead, we tend to buy items because they are on sale, make impulse purchases, take our cues from curated gift guides, or engage in the holiday tradition of waiting until the last minute and then buying whatever’s available and/or paying through the nose for rush shipping.

Luckily, the solution can be found right on your phone. Gift list tracker mobile apps, like Christmas Gift List Tracker (for iOS) and Christmas Gift List (for Android), allow you to set a budget for each person on your list, plan gifts for each recipient, and even check them off when they are bought and wrapped. You can also use these apps to share gift ideas with other people in your circle, while still hiding what you plan to buy for them.

By using an app to plan and budget for gifts, you’re much more likely to stick to your shopping list and financial constraints. And despite their names, these gift list apps are great for any gift-giving occasion, from Hanukkah and Eid to birthdays and weddings.

As a bonus, downloading a gift list app will also eliminate those “Did I already buy something for Aunt Rita?” moments that are the leading cause of last-minute scented candle purchases.

Plan your cooking with AI

Like gift-giving, holiday cooking can also be a somewhat haphazard affair for many people. If you don’t cook much the rest of the year, creating a meal plan and grocery list can come as a bit of a shock, which often leads to overbuying, convenience purchases, or having to buy something a second time after turning it into charcoal on your first cooking attempt. Even if you are a kitchen whiz, the larger crowds in grocery stores and the less-common ingredients you need for a once-a-year recipe can also bust your budget if you’re not careful.

Artificial intelligence can help you navigate every aspect of your holiday menu, from meal planning to comparison shopping. For instance, Microsoft’s CoPilot will not only plan out a holiday meal for you, including recipes and timing, but it can also compare prices for grocery items at nearby stores and tell you when stores are least crowded.

The trick to getting good information from AI is to be as specific as possible with your requests. Asking for a meal plan for Christmas dinner will give you a different result than asking for a Christmas dinner meal plan for 12 people, including two vegans and one person with a shellfish allergy. Similarly, you can get a general sense of prices in your area by asking for “a Christmas food price comparison near me,” while specifying what food and which stores will give you better information.

AI lets you streamline the meal planning process—and there’s no coupon-clipping or scouring grocery circulars required.

Save money on travel with Google

More than half of Americans plan to travel to see family for one or more holidays this season, with almost half of those travelers intending to spend $500 or more on travel costs, according to a recent survey by the Vacationer. These costs include anything from plane tickets to gas, tolls, and parking—and they have a nasty way of adding up quickly.

But Google offers a number of tools that holiday travelers can use to save money and time. To start, the Google Flights site allows you to search for flights based on criteria such as cost, number of stops, and time of day. You can also check prices at nearby airports, compare price history and trends, and check prices differences by date.

Google’s tool is similar to many other flight aggregation sites, but it also offers a flight tracker option that notifies you when prices drop for a specific route and date range. (Pro tip: Set a flight tracker today for your 2025 holiday travel to save money next year).

Google can also save you money on holiday travel if you’re driving. Google Maps can help you reduce your gas usage by planning out the most efficient route, and it can help you find the cheapest gas near you, allow you to avoid tolls, and even find a charging station for your EV.

This year, let technology help you plan

Planning out your holiday is the best way to make sure you don’t go over budget. But who has the time (or interest) to meticulously plan every aspect of their seasonal cheer? Technology, that’s who!

Using a gift list mobile app will help you decide on what presents to give, set a budget, and make sure you don’t lose any gifts in the seasonal melee. AI chatbots can help you create a meal plan, comparison shop among grocery stores, and even suggest recipes for this year’s roast beast. And Google’s travel tools, including Flights and Maps, can help you reduce the cost of getting home in time for the holidays.