Skip to main content

Stick to the Plan

Christmas Eve is in a week. You are in the home stretch. You are probably starting to get a little stressed out if you aren’t there already. You want everything to be perfect this year, right? Sorry to burst your holiday bubble, but that ain’t gonna happen.

Before you tell me that my heart must have shrunk three sizes too small, let me share my thoughts with you. When we get excited about things, we may or may not tend to put lots of pressure on ourselves. We may or may not go way overboard and anxiety may or may not creep in.

Regarding Christmas specifically, we may or may not put in a lot of time, effort, and money (many times more money than we should) to attempt to make the occasion "just right" for everybody. The amount of money that we are spending because we haven’t stuck to our budget may or may not stress us out (if it doesn’t, it SHOULD). We then might or might not feel unappreciated by those for whom we have exerted all the effort and resources. We may or may not feel buyer’s remorse, especially when that expensive toy or electronic item Johnny or Jane just HAD TO HAVE lay broken and/or forgotten within a few weeks. That really stinks. My advice? Lower your expectations. When you lower your expectations, you are less likely to get disappointed.

Let me repeat myself. When you lower your expectations, you are less likely to get disappointed.

What does that look like at this time of year? It looks like not trying to get ALL the gifts for ALL the people. It looks like not trying to attend every holiday event between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. It looks like not donating to every charity. It looks like not trying to please everybody. It looks like slowing down. It looks like enjoying the beauty and the magic of the season by participating in the events that work for your family. It looks like enjoying the most important people in your life. And it looks like sticking to your budget because you don’t deserve to drag THAT stress into 2022. Remember there is financial life after Christmas, and poor choices made in December will come to haunt you in January.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One More–Christmas Experiences Part II

Christmas is just a week away. Hopefully you’ve checked everything off your to-do list and can spend some quality time “experiencing” Christmas gifts with your family. Because, after all, your loved ones will be far more touched by how you made them feel than they will be with what you gave them. This week, I want to share with you my sister, Carey’s, family Christmas experience. “One Christmas, when my boys, now 18, 23 and 28, were little, we gave them an experience that is still talked about now. And it’s something so easily replicated that any family can do it, and it’s not too late to do it for Christmas (even ON Christmas) this year. We drove around our neighborhood and looked at all the homes decorated for the holiday. We took note of the addresses as we numbered them. We talked about what made each ornamented yards stand out. And at the end of the night, we voted for our favorite. I had my sons help me make some of our favorite holiday desserts and, in addition to taking p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Timing is Everything

I was told that a good time to buy a car is January or February. Why? I would guess it’s because many people are financially destitute right after Christmas (because they have not yet been introduced to my blog!) so car sales are down. I do think there is another reason. I think that most people have yet to file their taxes and receive their tax returns (a.k.a. overpayment that they loaned interest-free to the government ) with which they plan to make a down payment. Now it’s March, and many people have already filed their taxes and received said overpayment that we common-folk refer to as a return, and it’s burning a hole in their pockets. This can be good news for you if you have things you want to sell. Now is the time to capitalize on the extra influx of cash. What do you have around your house that you no longer use that you can sell? Speaking as someone who has done this very thing, I must warn you. Selling stuff you don’t need anymore and collecting the cash can be addicting...
Post a Comment
Read more

The One Nobody Wants to Talk About

A young, twenty-something wife and mother of three in my neighborhood lost her husband unexpectedly a few years ago. He died with no life insurance. It left the family financially devastated . She had to sell her house and move into her parent’s basement. A Go Fund Me account paid for her husband’s funeral. I have another friend who lost her husband to a horrible illness when they were in their early forties. This couple had planned ahead and made sure they had the right amounts of the right kinds of insurance in place, including life insurance on the major breadwinner of the family–my friend’s husband. A year or so after he passed, I asked her how she was doing financially. She said her husband had taken care of her financially in death just as well as he had in life. Life insurance is crucial for a specific portion of your life. Do not overlook this. There is more to losing a family member than the overwhelming grief of the loss itself. No one needs financial hardship heape...
Post a Comment
Read more