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Heading Into The Holidays: Protecting Yourself & Your Wallet – Ep. 119
Today, let’s dish out essential tips on protecting yourself and your wallet during holiday gatherings. From setting intentions and boundaries to planning for recharge time and budgeting wisely, we covered it all. You can conquer your finances without feeling overwhelmed. It’s all about taking messy action and making progress. So let’s do this!
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Podcast Key Points:
0:00 – Episode Overview
1:30 – Setting Boundaries
3:18 – Recharge Time
7:30 – Announcements
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Protecting Yourself and Your Wallet During Holiday Gatherings
Let’s be real spending time with family can be great. And it can be stressful, either or both all the above right so as we head into the holidays like we’re here, right? What do you need to do to protect yourself and your wallet when it comes to these holiday gatherings? That’s what we’re gonna talk about today. So here we go!
This is the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka, a money confidence coach for female entrepreneurs on the path to six figures.
After over 10 years in the personal finance industry and multiple personal financial and medical crisis. I was fed up with the lies that are being shouted from the rooftops by the Gurus and the media said I help you simplify, solidify and scale your money. By blending tactile money strategies with mindset work, you can create unstoppable finances together, you’ll finally figure out the money thing so you can make more money in less time without living off of beans and rice, or sacrificing your lifestyle. Episodes here on the podcast are short and sweet.
Being married, having four kids at home, homeschooling being the CEO running the household. I’m kind of busy. And I know you are too. So let’s keep it simple and get to the point. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!
Welcome back to the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka. We are talking about as we head into the holidays, protecting yourself and your wallet.
I’m thinking specifically about these activities, these gatherings and as an introvert, we can add like an extra level in here, but I’ve got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 things to help you prepare as we head into the holidays. So I know it’s a busy season. Let’s get to it.
Setting Intentions for a Stress-Free Season
The first thing is I want you to set the intention before him like what are you going to do the space that you’re going to hold for yourself the respect that you’re going to hold for yourself? My friend Kylie, she’s been on the podcast several times did a really great masterclass recently about you know, like, taking care of yourself in the the holidays, it’s in her group. If you want to see that, send me a message on Instagram, I can get you all connected.
But like, set the intentions beforehand what is like your goal, What’s your intention, that way you don’t get like wrapped into things and Okay, as we go through these is probably going to help with what intentions you need to set. So let’s keep going.
Establishing Boundaries for Your Well-being
Okay, the second thing I want you to do is have a boundary. Okay. So if you know people, because I think we all do, they’ll say one time, they really mean like 30 minutes early, or an hour earlier or an hour later, like, set the boundary and show up when you need to show up, like, set it accordingly. But do what you were told, like, what you plan to, don’t let them whatever that may that influence their affect you okay?
Because you can only control you. We can’t control how they act. But you can control yourself and the boundaries that you set in the way that you honor and respect yourself there.
Prioritizing Recharge Time
The third thing I want you to do to protect yourself, and your wallet is playing for recharge time. So full transparency, I am recording this the day before it goes live. I don’t like to do this, but I am.
And if you’re connected on social, you’re gonna see that my kids woke up this morning to a letter, which I thought it was really funny. But from the quote school board, we homeschool if you don’t know, okay, I made the decision. Last night, actually, after I had already told my eldest like we were still going to do the school this week, I was looking at the calendar.
And I was like, You know what, this, and we’re going to talk about this in the next several weeks, because like this is part of the planning. But I don’t want to feel like we are cramming everything in that we can do and rushing through the time leading up to Christmas because that’s not enjoyable. And I’m not building a business based like to get to the income levels like necessarily those accolades, they’re, they’re great.
But it’s more important to me to build a life a legacy, a business that feels good as we go. Because we’ve talked about this a couple of times before there’s nowhere to get to. So building and recharge time.
So back to what they woke up to. They woke up to a letter that said like, “Attention students, the school board convened and you know your Christmas break starts effective today” , because originally we were going to do like a half week of school this week. Not happening.
I was like no, I would rather sit here and enjoy the time. We can plan to start back earlier. So we’re planning to start back on January 2. If that happens, great. If not, it’s not a big deal because we’re doing what we need to to recharge and building in that time.
Prioritize saying yes to yourself. I think most of us overcommit over the holidays, like myself included, but build in that time and prioritize recharging you don’t, again, going back to the boundaries, holding the boundary for yourself to saying yes to yourself when you need to.
Budgeting Wisely with the 24-Hour Rule
Okay, this fourth one here is more about your budget 24 Hour Rule. Just as a reminder, if you’re going to make a big purchase, like Wait 24 hours to make sure you’re not making the emotional decision. So maybe it’s a fun activity that you want to go do.
But like it’s a big impulse, and you feel like that all that check about, find another way to do something else. Wait the 24 hours, so you can look at things objectively.
Planning Ahead for Food Stops
Last thing, staying ahead, food stops, especially if you’re traveling but food particularly I mean, how many of us, we had a Christmas party last night, we have a Christmas party tonight, we have a field trip tomorrow and then another Christmas activity in the evening. And then we’re taking a meal to a family that we know that needs support right now, and another Christmas activity. And then the following day, we have another activity with for school, like when those things are going on, it can be really easy to kind of forget about food, needing to purchase food for your family.
And because we all kind of get hangry sometimes here, well, myself and the kids get hangry in our family. So like we can’t just go without food. But it can definitely add up if you’re not planning ahead for what you’re going to need to eat.
Embracing Quality Over Quantity in Gift-Giving
So we’re setting intentions beforehand on what you want this to look like, whether it’s the boundaries that you’re taking the time that you’re going to need to recharge, you’re going to use the 24 hour rule as you go through everything expenses. Maybe it’s toys, or gifts that you’re looking at, and you came in with one intention, but then you’re like, “Oh, look at this, and ooh, look at this.”
I have to say that I feel like it did much better this year with sticking to that. So yay, progress, because I’m a work in progress to something that we’re always working on.
Exploring Free or Low-Cost Festive Activities
And then the fifth thing was planning had food and snacks. But I really want you to make the space to enjoy this. I don’t want you to get caught up in like all they have to do is I want you to enjoy this time this season.
And what you need to do to protect yourself and wallet. So hopefully this was helpful. Leave me a comment, let me know, Instagram for watching on YouTube, you can always let me know here in the comments below. I want to hear I hope that I get to announcements before I sign off.
We have decided as of today that there is not going to be a Tuesday episode next week on the 26th that I’m going to get into more about why coming up. Because you know, we just talked about like my consistency, right? I have the episode planned.
But really what I realized was, this wasn’t best designed as a podcast. And then it was like, Okay, we’re gonna put this together actually, it’s on Instagram right now, we’re going to do this as a workshop, live the week after Christmas so that you can work on your holiday budget to plan for 2024.
But I don’t want to do a workshop next week. Like being honest, like this is I’m shifting things so that we can wrap up and then I can really spend next week, you know, supporting my comments on Voxer slack for the Money Mastery Academy members, doing the wrap up things and really focusing on what I want to because we don’t have to go go go right like you run your business. Your business doesn’t run you so making these choices, we will still have a Cash Clarity episode.
So you will get one on Thursday, I already recorded that. It’s really quick hit episode, and I feel like it’s going to be helpful, especially at this holiday budget thing is interesting. But what I’ve decided to do is I am recording it as a workshop for Money Mastery Academy members.
Affordable Insights: Your $7 Ticket to Holiday Budget Mastery
If you want to get access to this, it’s going to have like your PDF worksheet, and the video overview. I think $7 is long gonna charge for it. But if you want access to this drop “holiday” on YouTube watching on YouTube, or send me a message on Instagram, the link will be in the show notes. Like the word “holiday” and I’ll give you the input for that we’re not doing anything fancy.
But this is the way that it needs to be done because it you don’t need like a long need to see it. Alright, you can listen to this. We can talk through this but you need to see and I’m gonna give you the guide to do this step by step walk through creating your holiday budget. Believe it or not right after the holidays is the best time to set this up.
And it’s also the easiest, so only $7 If you want that holiday over on Instagram. That’s what I’ve got for now. We’ll see you next time.
Take Control of Your Finances
Thank you so much for listening to the Your Money, Your Life podcast. I’ve got a special gift for you for sticking around to the end and if you’re tired of your finance as being a mess, this is for you. What if you could take charge of your money without feeling overwhelmed?
Even if you’re not a numbers person, even if you just don’t know where to begin, even if you don’t have the time, even if you failed in the past, and even if you don’t want to sacrifice your lifestyle, take messy action and finally make progress with your finances without feeling overwhelmed pinching pennies or staring at a spreadsheet for hours with the 14 Day Money Mastery Action Plan. And when you use coupon code “podcast”, I’m going to give you 40% off, just visit aimeecerka.com/action and grab the 14 day action plan for less than $20. Alright, talk soon.
