I love the holidays, but as a buyer, I hate this time of year. Media sales people and vendors are calling constantly looking for that use it or lose it “dump money.”

If you have dump money, only two things are true:

• Your money will be wasted.
• Your budgeting process is nonsensical.

Somehow inventory will be found and contracts will be amended. But the marginal ROI on inventory will suck and, come January 2nd, you’ll wonder whether you bought technology X after a particularly liquid holiday party.

I don’t have dump money (although I’ve spent it for others, with predictable results) because I practice proper, zero-based budgeting. If you budget correctly, when the vendors call this month you can confidently say “no, I’m good.”