Holiday savings fund tracker

Christmas club accounts go back to local banks in the early 1900s: a fixed amount held back from every pay packet from autumn onward, released as one lump sum right before the holidays. The appeal was never the interest — it was removing the decision. By December the money was already set aside, so there was nothing left to scramble for once the gift lists and travel costs showed up. This tracker rebuilds that same habit on paper: colour a square each time you set the amount aside, and the running total does the arithmetic your holiday budget usually skips.

$600 across 60 squares works out to $10 a square — a round number chosen because it rescales easily, not a claim about what the average household spends over the holidays. Fewer, larger squares get you to the same total faster; more, smaller ones spread it further across the year. Either way, the point of starting the tracker now is that December spending is already covered before the sales even start, rather than decided under pressure at the till.