Welcome to the money mindset podcast, where you will find the inspiration and motivation. You need to manage your money better. So you can stress less as limbo. This is Ashley with budgets made easy and the money mindset podcast. Today, we are going to talk about how to budget for Christmas and avoid debt this holiday season. This is the time of year that we spend the most money we're under so much stress to keep up with everything and travel and family and all of the things.

So how can we avoid debt? Avoid the pressure of spending so much money over the next, you know, six weeks, two months, whatever it is at this point, I'm losing track of the days, but, you know, in order to avoid debt and really keep on track with our financial goals, we need to have a plan. And that plan includes,

you know, prioritizing our time and our money during the holidays, because it's so hard to say no to tradition to our families. But you know, you might have to, if you want to stay on track and stick to your plan with your finances. So if you want to pay off debt, you have to avoid going further into debt, right?

So one of the biggest things to do this holiday season is think about ways that you can pay for Christmas, pay for travel without going into more debt or adding to the debt. The biggest way to do that is to figure out what you're going to spend and what you're going to spend it on. This will help you prioritize your time and your money.

And I do have a free resource for you to help you do that, to help you make that plan. So you can figure out what is important to you and your family during this busy season and where you're going to spend your time and your money. So you can go to, budget's made easy.com/holiday planner to grab your free printable budget planner for the holidays.

Once you do that, you'll be able to make a clear plan for things that you need to spend money on, and maybe have an idea of what you don't want to spend your money on. You know, do you not want to travel this year? Do you not want to do, you know, the holiday work Christmas party, if people are even having those these days,

you know, do you want to not, or do you want to have a no gift Christmas? You know, do you want to consult with the adults in your family and decide, Hey, this year, we're just going to buy for the kids instead of all of the adults too, and all the extended family members and all the things, because that adds up quickly,

you know, you can just explain that you have these financial goals that you're working towards, and that will really set you back if you buy for everybody, but that you would still love to spend time with them. You'd still love to buy the nieces and nephews and the, the kids presence. But if you could just, you know, this year,

skip all the adults that will help you make more progress on your financial goals. Now your family may not be up for that, but it's definitely worth having that conversation. And, you know, if you need to be firm in your conviction for not doing that, and you can, you know, just say that it's temporary, it's just for this year.

If it is, I mean, don't lie. If it's, if it's just something that you just don't want to do anymore and nor family redo kind of a mix. So one part of our family does just the children. Another part of the family does everybody. One another part of the family just does like a gift exchange, a one female gift,

one male gift, and then you kind of draw names or numbers or whatever it is. I forget exactly because we're never home for the holidays. It's way too stressful. So learn to say no and prioritize your time and your finances for what brings you joy. If it doesn't bring you joy to buy and spend all this money on gifts for people that you never see,

and don't even have a part in your life, like why do that? But if, you know, you want to still buy presents for those that are important in your life, you could just scale it down. So there's lots of ways that you can buy cheaper gifts, find coupons, find deals, all of those good things online. I mean,

shoot, you can do that pretty easy nowadays, right? With shopping online and just try and put a lot of thought into the gifted. Doesn't have to be an expensive gift to still be meaningful and memorable for the person receiving the gift. You know, some of the best gifts are experiences, not items. So maybe you could even bring it up to your family and think about ways that you can have a family experience.

That will be a little bit cheaper that everybody will enjoy instead of buying them a bunch of crap that they honestly don't need. And maybe even don't want, you know, why spend your money on things like that that are just going to end up in the trash or donated in a couple of months when you can have an experience that the memory will last a lifetime.

So think about different experiences that you can enjoy as a family. It doesn't even have to be in December. Like it could be February, March, April, and just say, Hey, this is our Christmas gift to you. Let's go do this experience and stead or, you know, if you have nieces and nephews or small children, what kind of experience can you buy for them as a gift?

Like I love my family to give my kids a zoom membership. There's also a it's called discovery place, but it's, I don't know how to describe it if you aren't familiar with it, but it has a whole bunch of different stations for young kids, so they can learn about and, and have different sensory toys and different, you know, there's like an ambulance,

there's a fire truck, there's a farming station. There's a grocery store. Like it has all these things for them to play in different stations and different things for them to learn about and just have that kind of sensory interaction. So that is a yearly membership as well that we request, you know, is there any concerts that you want to go to now that they're coming back in the spring and in the summer,

you know, what can you plan for that? Your family, maybe your parents, your brothers, your sisters, your nieces and nephews that they would want to experience with you instead of getting them a gift that, you know, they may not want or neat. So once you get an idea of what you're going to do in terms of presence, experiences,

travel, all of those things, you create a plan for how you're going to spend your money on these items. So if you're going to travel, how much are you going to set aside for travel? If you're going to do gifts and which gifts and to whom, what are you going to spend on each person or each family or each experience. However,

you're going to map that out. So the important thing is to write it down and make sure that it's an amount that you can afford without going into debt. And you know, it's going to take some willpower because as it gets closer to Christmas, you know, I don't know about you, but for me, sometimes I will start forgetting, forgetting what I've already bought.

And since I, I am typically a very late rapper, like I will end up wrapping everything on like Christmas Eve. I forget what is hidden all over the place. And so I'm like, oh, I haven't bought enough for the kids and I'll go out and I'll buy a bunch of last minute little things. But then when I go to wrap it,

I'm like, oh, I forgot I had this. And you know, what I have done on numerous occasions found presents months later that I forgot to give the kids. So, you know, if you have a clear plan, which, you know, in the paycheck budget spreadsheet, that's all updated now. So all I have to do is input what I've bought for each kid into that spreadsheet and it's there.

And then I can, I don't have to like go searching around the house, looking for it. I can just pull up this spreadsheet and see what I've already bought and what I still want to buy. So that does make that part a little bit easier. But once you, you know, you have your plan, you know what you're going to buy,

you know what who's getting, what then you can start going and looking for the deals. Can you find the item used where it's not going to be a big deal? Like if it's not new in the package, like it's still what they want. Facebook marketplace is a great place to find, use toys and things, you know, get a good deal on something that it doesn't really matter if it's used,

so you can save money and avoid debt, right? There's also a coupon sites. You can also find ways to get like free Amazon gift cards by taking surveys and things like that. So I will link to some of those resources in the show notes for you as well, because I have blog posts on ways to get free Christmas gifts and how to get free Amazon gift cards and had a budget for Christmas and all those things.

So I will link to those in the show notes, but you can always go to just, budget's made easy.com and then click on saving, and then that'll take you to all those saving money posts as well. If you can't find the show notes. Cause I know sometimes they're a little tricky to find in, in the app. So figure out where you're going to spend your time and money trying to,

you know, no gifts or kind of scale back the gifts or do you know more experiences that might save you a little bit of money, things like that, especially with your extended family. If you're buying presents for everybody, look for some gift cards and coupons and you know, deals. Of course there's black Friday cyber Monday, like everybody's running sales for like week,

oh gosh, it might even end up being two weeks this year. It seems like it gets longer and longer every year. Right? Try and find what you can used or add a discount so that you can avoid putting things on the credit card and keep in mind that, you know, Christmas and the holidays, cause you may not be celebrating Christmas,

but the holidays are really about spending time with your family and focusing on what is important for you. It's not always about gifts. Of course, the younger kids, you know, they want gifts, but they're also the ones that you can buy, like some cheap stuff for them just to, they have something or you can buy, you know, and they're not going to be picky about if it's use and not already in the package.

You know, and as kids get older, they understand, you know, the experiences and making memories and those types of things easier as well. So I feel like even with, if they're younger kids, you have solutions of either older kids, you have solutions and if they're adults, they should understand. And honestly they might even be a little relieved that you've brought it up because they probably don't want to spend a whole bunch of money on gifts too.

And you know, it's kinda hard to be the one to stand up and say, Hey, we want to do something a little bit differently this year. Just be tactful in how you approach the subject depending on the family member. Because I know some of you have family members, that'd be, oh yeah, great. That'd be awesome. Let's do that.

And some of you will have family members that are like, are you serious? Like, why are, why would we want to do that? Like Christmas is about the gifts, you know, would say but thing. So there's gonna be a huge range of reactions to it, but keep in mind that it's your finances and your financial. And if you can't afford to do something,

stick to your guns and say, no, have a plan in place for how you're going to handle it. If they do have a bad reaction, or if you say, Hey, I really can't afford it this year. And you really can't and they still try and guilt you into things, have a backup plan of how you're going to handle it.

Mentally, prepare yourself for okay, if they say this, cause you know them, you know, the things that they're going to say, the things they're going to do to try and guilt you into doing it anyway, go ahead and mentally prepare yourself for how you're going to handle that and how you're still going to respond to those reactions. Like go ahead and have a response already prepared.

And you don't, maybe even you've write it down because it's easier to remember things if you write it down because you know, if you're like me and you kind of like freeze a little bit when you're like, but if you mentally prepare ahead of time, that'll be easier to get through your point and that you want to avoid debt that you need to cut the spending this year.

And things like that, people will, most of the people are going to understand and probably be thankful and not want to buy all those presents too. But you know, there are some people that their love language is gift giving. And if you're not sure what I'm talking about as the five love languages. Oh my gosh. I think it's Gary Chapman, I believe is the author,

but it's a really good book. And you know, a lot of people show their love in different ways than how they want and how they feel loved. So if somebody is just loves gift giving their love language is probably getting and receiving gifts. So you might need to just maybe get them something smaller, something more meaningful so that they still feel loved.

But if you have a lot of family members that are like me, their love language is not. Gift-giving like I could just never get gifts. Like I really don't care. My love language is acts of service. So for me, a Christmas gift would be to go and finish that dang project. That's been sitting there for six months, right? I don't,

my husband's listening. You know, I don't need gifts. Like that's just not my thing, but some people do and they do need gifts to feel love. So try not to like brush that off and think that they're just being greedy or being ridiculous because if they really do care about getting and receiving gifts, their love language is probably gift giving. And so maybe just get them something smaller,

something more meaningful, but don't, you know, take it personally or, or think badly of them if they do want to still do gifts, but still find, see if you can find other ways to still scale it back as much as you can. And just say, I'm not going to put anything on a credit card this year, make that commitment to yourself and try and find ways to come up with the money.

In other ways, you can even sell items so you can buy items on Facebook marketplace. You can sell items on Facebook marketplace. That's just the easiest place to do it more. Most people do it nowadays. Of course there's still Craigslist around, but I don't know that many people still use Craigslist, but you can, you know, try that out as well.

But Facebook marketplace is typically the place where most people sell things. Facebook groups, Facebook to your friends, you know, just post it on your feed because other people, especially with young kids, I've noticed it with when the kids were younger, a lot of people would buy used gifts and I would buy use gifts too. So cause you know what,

they don't play with them very long. Anyway, they're hardly even used. And if you clean it up, you can get a very good price for it. So, you know, think about what can you sell or maybe how can you make some extra money in the next month so that you can not use a credit card and just pay for everything in cash.

So think of some ways that you can save money and make extra money, cut expenses, cut back the gift giving. If you can, maybe even, you know, some of the traditional things that maybe you don't want to do that costs money, the holiday parties, all of those types of things. Just go ahead, decide what you can do,

what you can't do and prepare for how you will handle their reactions to the things that you just can't do this year. Don't forget if you need help creating your plan, creating your budget, figuring out what you can spend, what you can't spend. You can get the free holiday budget planner. A budgets made easy.com/holiday planner. So like I said, it is free.

It will help you create your plan so that you can go ahead and be prepared for what you can do, what you want to say no to what you don't want to spend your time and money on this year and just be content in your decision. Try not to let anybody guilt you into, you know, changing your plan and going into debt for the holidays.

And I will talk to you soon.