Do you plan on using your credit cards for holiday shopping this year? If so, how much of your total holiday budget will you (or should you) put on your credit cards? To help you figure out how much you want to charge this year, let’s look at two important considerations.

There’s no set dollar amount or percentage of your holiday spending that you should put on your credit cards. That will vary from person to person. But when deciding how much is right for you, consider the way you plan to use those cards.

Convenience vs Financing

If you plan to use your credit cards solely for convenience (or to earn rewards points), you might want to use your cards to buy all holiday gifts this year. That’s especially true if you have the cash on-hand for everything on your gift list and you plan to pay off the credit card charges in full right away.

On the other hand, if you plan to use your credit cards to actually finance holiday purchases over time, you might want to limit how much you put on your cards. In that case buy what you can with the money you have on-hand and then finance no more than you can afford to pay off over the next few months.

Figuring Out What You Can Afford

It’s a good idea to look at your overall budget and not just your holiday budget before whipping out your credit card for gifts. It isn’t enough to have a plan for how much you want to spend. You also need to know what you can actually afford to repay in a reasonable time. No one wants to spend the bulk of the upcoming year paying off holiday gifts from the previous one.

So before deciding what to finance, figure out what you can repay within no more than three months if possible. That leaves you with most of the New Year to save for next year’s holiday shopping so you won’t repeat the debt cycle.

It’s not a big deal to go into a little bit of debt over the holidays. Just don’t allow that debt to pile onto existing debts if you already can’t afford them. Otherwise, go ahead and enjoy the ability to pay for those purchases over time and maybe earn some rewards in the process.