This the ring goes and gonna ding all the bells out. Everybody is waiting for the man with a bag. Okay, it's October. I'm not saying to now, we need to have that back up.
Thanks, kid. We have to have that. We have to have that. But we had that out with either bringing it home with Sarah and Danielle.
This is one of my favorite Christmas songs. I've been there, it's a little early for me to be listening to a Christmas song, but I love this one. I can listen to this anytime. It's 2020, anything goes.
Hey, everybody's waiting for the man with a bag, including me, but I tell you what, we're going to be intentional about the holidays this year, because like you said, it is 2020. A lot of stuff has gone wrong, sideways, gone unexpectedly. However you want to describe it. I'm still getting over my Easter via Zoom with all my family.
Yeah, it's been a crazy year, but we need to start looking at our holiday budgeting, because things are a little bit different this year for a lot of people. So, you know, making a list is going to be the first step. And check it twice. We're going to be like Santa Claus.
We're going to have to look at the list again and figure out who needs to be on it. Now, if you ever wanted to trim your Christmas list, this might be the year to do it. It's true, but in reality, because of a pandemic, a lot of people have lost their jobs or are making less money, you know? So, you may not be able to buy what you're used to buying.
Right, that's true. And then just fear of kind of the unknown. You know, people may not want to splurge as much as they normally do, because even if they haven't lost jobs, we're just still kind of feeling unstable and not wanting to spend a whole lot of extra in some areas. So, you know, we're going to make the list and just kind of decide how much money that we're going to spend and who all we're going to spend it on.
And then our entertainment budget is going to look different. Well, I was going to look real different. Yeah, well, you may not be going to do it in like for use to, you know, to have people over to eat or all that, going places to eat, you know? Or the travel, you know, a lot of families of, you know, budget for flying for Thanksgiving or maybe even Christmas.
And that may not be a reality for some families this year. Exactly. So, the first thing we've got to do is just start with a list. Start with a list.
Second twice. And then decide which is going to spend. You need to work on a budget. And not just for gifts, but like you have mentioned, a lot of holiday related things, travel, food.
You need to make a budget for a day. Decorations. You know, if we are a family that goes all out and has all the lights in the yard and it affects our utility bill, you know, we can go on and on and on into January and beyond, depending on the choices that we made, leading up to the holidays. So we got to think about all this this year.
And consider eating your charitable giving. Yeah. Y'all to mail you all those cute pictures of your kids and all your friends and family don't cost you a lot. Yeah, it is.
So I'm not saying don't do that, but you need to put it in your budget. Yeah, we got to think of everything and not just the gifts under the tree, because that's where the surprise is coming in. You know, your budget is starting to bound. You know, you go over that because all the other things you got to think about.
So, you know, you decide who's getting what set of a ceiling, so to speak, for your spending. You know, this is all that we got just being and we got to do everything within this amount of money. And be realistic, because if your family has been financially affected by the pandemic, you know, be realistic. Yeah.
We don't want you worried about this in January. No, we want new worries for January, February, not in Christmas. No, we don't want to be worried about Christmas, but we do need a set of expectations and some conversations probably need to be had. First of all, with the children in our lives, you know, if we've been at a better financial place in the past and we've been able to buy, you know, lots of extraordinary gifts and different things.
And if Christmas is going to be way too bad, you know, we need to, you know, prepare, especially younger children and even the older children that can understand more about what's going on, that, you know, we're not going to have as many boxes under the tree this year, but we're going to have fun and we're going to do lots of things together. That's right. You can start some new traditions. You can.
And even the adults, you may have to have some conversations with some adults about how things are going to have to, you know, just lean on down a little bit. Oh, I agree. I agree. So, something that you and I both like to do is shop.
Yeah, we do. We've been finally recommended to start now, start shopping early for a multitude of reasons. You can say money, number one, it's easier to stick to your budget because you have a longer time for something to take in that. Compare your prices.
Yes. And number two, the pandemic has had an effect on our supply chain all the way down to, I mean, last month, you couldn't even find a bike at the store. Right. So, things that you might want to purchase people is going to be hard to find or online shopping has risen dramatically, so there may be less inventory.
Shipping delays. Yes. You're absolutely right. We need to get started earlier than usual.
You know, we like Black Friday and I know Black Friday is going to look different for us this year, but we don't necessarily need to wait until the day after Thanksgiving. We need to get started. We need to get started before the end for the reasons that you mentioned and to make sure that we can get it all in and get things and see at the last minute, we're tempted to overspend. Because we're in a rush.
We got to get it done. Yeah, we got to get it done. And so we got to pay the price. So I agree with us starting early and getting it done as fast as we can.
And then we need to keep track of our spending. Use cash whenever you can. Now, more public different reasons. Number one, I'm stingy with my cash.
I don't know. I'll swipe the plastic. You know, I know it's all coming from the same place, but when I'm having a handover, cash, I think about it a little bit more. And then also it kind of reduces the opportunity for some holiday fraud, you know, especially when we're in stores and you drop it in the mad rush or lose it or it's compromised in some way.
So cash is good when we're face to face. Now, obviously online shopping, we want to use reputable websites that we've done business with before. Make sure that we've got our security up to date on our computers and for using all those types of things. Well, even because I lead a Christmas club, you know, we have for years and that's my budget.
When it's gone. And that's so happy. You're taking me Christmas club. It's always around Halloween.
It's just so exciting. So you're gearing up for it. But if I'm purchasing online, I just put that money back on my account. I'm still very frugal with my cash.
So that's something to think about. It's okay to say no. Maybe you're keeping on something that's not even doable. It's no.
Oh, I got practice of that. Call me if you need help. I'm good at that. We will figure out a way for you to say no.
We're not able to do that. But here's what we can do. Yeah. And those kids, let's give them more credit than they usually get.
They do. They get it. The pandemic has affected them. So I mean, they know that life has changed.
Their lives have changed. And you know, it goes back to having some of those conversations. That's right. And we talked about that from day one.
We did. You know, a lot of fun can be had by instead of giving your traditional gifts, make something or give a coupon for something. I actually did this last Christmas. Remember when my two nephews, I got them a little gift, like some books or movies they wanted.
But then I gave them a coupon and they got to come to our house for one night and it was like their night. They got to pick a book. Remember? We decorated like our pictures of them hanging up in the house.
And they had so much fun. Well, gosh, Sarah, that's what I want for my Christmas gift from you. I want to do my teardrop. We did.
I request a food and I get decorations. Now, when I met these, we didn't get it in before the pandemic started. So he actually didn't get his until this summer. It was a gift.
That's right. He knew what was there. So that's a good idea. You know, for those that were not able to buy the traditional gifts or spend the amount of money that we normally spend, do something personal.
Or if you had a hobby, if you knit or you did woodworking, do that. To me, I love a handmade gift. It's original. I mean, it was just for you.
Yes, exactly. So I think that's what we can do without you spending the time. Probably your favorite Christmas movie, Trim the Tree. You know, sing some songs, make cards for the nursing home residence.
Or, you know, a lot of people are not active in church right now because they don't want to be in grips. People have seen Christmas cards to the people in your church. You know, there's so many things that you can do to have that Christmas cheer and not cost anything. Well, that's what we want to rely on doing it.
Even though it's not Halloween, we hope you'll pause and go ahead and get Christmas together. And that's the name of your ex-cousation of giving, not the season of spending. Oh, did you wait that up? I wish I could claim that.
Oh, okay. Remember to get to your time, to get to your present, not present, but just being together. That's what we need to remember. I like it.
So thank you for joining us for this episode in the words of Mr. Bob Marley. Live the like love. I love the like love.
Bye-bye.