12 Days of Giving Day 10: Stop Forgetting What December Cost You

December is chaos. Holidays, travel, weather, kids, hosting, work, pressure to “make it special” – and then we act shocked when the credit card statement smacks us in January. In this 12 Days of Giving episode, I bring back money expert Rachel Duncan to walk through the one simple system she built to stop December from blindsiding her every single year: a recurring “Holiday Lessons Learned” calendar event that future Rachel is very, very grateful for.

Rachel breaks down exactly how she built her holiday playbook: what went wrong, what worked, who actually enjoys which tasks, how much candy they really need for Halloween, why New Year’s hosting hits different, and how all of that quietly adds up to real money. She shows you how she turned a chaotic season into a repeatable checklist that lives in her calendar and gets better every year instead of starting from zero every time.

From there, we go straight into the money. We talk holiday “specialness” spending, why the real budget busters are the so-called “one-off” expenses, and how seasonal stuff like camps, hobbies, gifts, travel and parties are exactly what push people into debt. Rachel walks through her “holiday specialness” category, sinking funds, and even a controversial but smart use of a dedicated credit card you pre-load like a savings bucket. This isn’t theory – this is how real families actually spend.

Then we zoom out into the psychology. We hit future-self research, the idea of seeing your future self as a real person, and why we’re willing to plan better for others than we are for ourselves. Rachel shares how aging a photo of herself, naming future-Rachel, and literally thanking “past me” changed how she spends in the moment. It’s not about guilt. It’s about taking responsibility for the version of you who has to live with December’s decisions.

If you’re tired of swearing “next year will be different” and then repeating the same pattern, this episode is your line in the sand. We’re giving you a concrete way to capture your own holiday lessons, track the real costs, and start funding them like adults instead of pretending we’ll remember. This is part of our 12 Days of Giving series – one raw, practical episode every day from December 12–23 to get your money and mindset right heading into 2026.

👉 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AUn_SwFDK5M

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Chapters

• 0:00 December chaos and why we always “forget”
• 0:34 Rachel’s “Holiday Lessons Learned” calendar ritual
• 1:57 Turning holiday chaos into an annual playbook
• 5:02 Halloween, summer, and the lie of “one-off” expenses
• 6:27 How seasonal spending silently blows up your budget
• 8:12 Creating a “holiday specialness” category that tells the truth
• 10:26 Using a credit card like a sinking fund (without the shame)
• 12:34 Annual expenses, squirrels, and saving for future you
• 15:36 Future-self psychology and why past you matters
• 18:44 Fixing next year’s holidays (and planning 12 Days of Giving)

Transcript

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 0:10

December's kind of chaotic, right? I mean, we've got holidays, we've got bills, we've got weather, we've got the markets, and then we have this whole thing like, Hey, 2026 is gonna be better or, or the next year is just gonna be that much better. But today, Rachel has something that for her personally, by the way. Right. This is a personal thing for her that she does, and we're gonna talk through why, how it started, how's it going, um, and steps that you can take to implement this in your life. So, Rachel, without further ado, tell us what do you do?

Rachel Duncan: 0:39

Thank you story for having me back on. By the way, I'll, I will say there's always weather. I think, I think, uh, mark Twain said that there's always weather, okay. About five years ago, it might have even been longer, but I think maybe the first year of the pandemic, what I realized sort of deep into December is, ah, there's all these things. Oh, I gotta remember to do this next year. I gotta remember not to do this next year. It was a lot of, I need to not do this again next year. I think it was like wrapping presents till one in the morning, you know, scampering around the last minute. And I was like, why does this always catch me off guard? When it does happen every year, and I think it's just'cause 12 months is a really long time, like we think we'll remember and we won't, it's like childbirth amnesia or something, you know, like we just won't remember. So I was like, I'm not gonna remember this. So I started, I actually just looked on my phone. I started an annual event, a calendar recurring event on my phone called Holiday Lessons Learned, and I create it kind of through December. But I have, it remind me early November, so mine pops up about November 5th. And so I was just thinking I will. Could I read you the list of lessons that I've learned over the last five years? No, this is very specific to me, but I, I wanted to share this because first off, we we're not gonna remember next year, and I do think this has helped me be more intentional and, um, a little less frenzied and a little more like, oh yeah, I learned that the hard way, uh, to remember. And this is something that I remind myself. And then at the end of the holidays, I go back and I update it so that the next November. It's sort of updated, so it's not, and I will talk about money, but this is more just like habits and stuff. Uh, number one, remind Alex to take time off work. My husband is Alex and he comes from a country that doesn't really celebrate Christmas, so he, it's not really ingrained in him, so he does need reminding, and I think I ended up just putting this on him, but he needed reminding that like, actually that's a crazy time. Like you're not just taking off the. 25th, the next one. Um, let's see. Ah, my husband really loves mind gifts, so, and I am less into that. Like, I like doing other things. I like making gifts and cooking and stuff. So, you know, kind of like reminding me to kinda sit down, like we need to sit down and kind of plan gifts and that that's his job. Um, I think also it was reminder to me, Rachel is not my job, it's his job. So that was very helpful. Alex and Rachel talk about priorities and values, interest levels, energy levels for holiday related stuff and decorating and hosting. Because it might not be the same every year. Like, Ugh, I'm kind of exhausted with this. Or, oh, could we do something different? Like, I do have to remind myself to talk to my husband. I dunno if anyone else is there. But we live together. We have a great marriage. We, we do forget to talk to each other. Ah, plan the weekend for decorating, because that also always catches us off guard. We're like, oh, whoops. It's kinda like we see all the neighbors do it and we're like, eh, and then we kind of fit it in. But I would rather, let's put it on the calendar that this date will be decorating day. Yep. Mail presence before the 18th. Do need a reminder on that. Um, ah, the other thing, the, the other reason the holidays are a little bit extra for me and my family is I also host a New Year's Day lunch, which honestly, I really love it is near and dear to my heart, but like, that's just a week after Christmas, right? So I do need to kind of put things in place now. So some of this was, remember there's also New Year's, there's like two events. Um, so it's like send invites to New Year's, you know, in early December. So that's a big thing for me. Prepare food day before as much as possible. Uh, even things like this. GE when guests arrive around four dinner, around five kids in bed by eight. And that's a little bit wishful thinking, but I do have to kind of remember when do we have people over? And that that was a lesson learned. I have a feeling that was a lesson learned after like a 9:00 PM dinner, you know, um, set table early. Plan oven time, uh, buy tickets to the Nutcracker if I can. I still haven't done it, but I do remind myself to try to do it. Check out the rec center for events and craft sales. And then I have a separate note for my New Year's thing. So this is just like, it's just the details in my calendar and I update it. And these are like a hard earned lessons. And I swear every year it gets better because I remind myself of this stuff.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 4:36

Now do you do that for different parts of the year or have you realized like just the chaos of. The end of the year.

Rachel Duncan: 4:42

It's extra for this year for sure, but I do it for Halloween mostly. Like how many bags of candy did we need to buy? That's usually the big one. How much candy did we use? Because every year that throws us off. So I think my only note is that, but yes, I do it for, um, for. Halloween. Oh, actually, I'm glad you mentioned that. I also did it for summer because I feel like at the end of the summer, like sometimes we have regrets. We're like, oh God, I wish we just set some stuff up. Or, you know, so many things have to be booked ahead of time. Um, I do, I think in April I have a reminder to plan things in the summer. So I just, I think this is so important, especially when we look financially because it is these annual costs that throw us off because you know, so much of o budgeting is based on the monthly cadence and we can certainly plan a lot around monthly. That's how, where most of our bills are, there's so many seasonal things and, and I find that a lot of my clients have accumulated debt. Just based on the stuff that happens once a year. Um, so I think the more we can, you know, have more sinking funds for these annual things, and it might not just be the holidays. It could be like summer camps for the kids, or if you have a holiday, or sorry, seasonal related hobby to have a sinking fund for those things because they catch us off guard. And you're not gonna remember that we have like amnesia about it. It's just 12 months is too long. In between

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 5:54

It is. And though, and like you said, those things do pop up, but also we never remember what we spent on them. Like I, I know. We'll use the candy for example, like, you know, you buy candy every year. How much? How much was it? How much do you need? Right? Yeah. Or you know, Christmas, I think a lot of people will budget for gifts, but rarely do I ever see people budgeting for food. Yeah. For they need to travel. And I don't mean travel in terms of flights and stuff, you're gonna budget for that. But it's like traveling around around town to get to shop to do these things. You're putting extra stress on things that isn't normal. Right.

Rachel Duncan: 6:25

Right. I like, I am bringing a cheeseboard for Thanksgiving this year and like that is not part of, is that part of the grocery budget or isn't it? I'm glad you brought that up because actually getting ready for our call. Here's another lesson learned. I actually sat down with my Monarch Money app, shout out Monarch money, and I set up a new category in my non monthly expense category. Um, a little Christmas tree. And what did I call it? I call it like holiday specialness. And I'm really gonna try this time to like, what was outta the reg? Like what is not, you know, if I can easily, you know, split a grocery bill, like if we go and buy a bunch of fancy cheese, you know, maybe I put that in the holiday specialness'cause that's not part of our like, regular monthly, um, groceries. And maybe I'll put gifts in there. Um, yeah. Special things for parties. I have like a white elephant gift party. I'm going to, you know, getting tickets to some. Uh, music and, and I'm, I'm really curious. I haven't really tracked it like this, so I'm gonna try that this year. Um, and then I'll add that to my lessons learned. Hey, budget X amount for this, this, uh, these last six weeks of the year.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 7:30

Budget it and look out for it because whoa. Yeah. Didn't see that coming, that exercise and, and everyone listening will have her back on in the beginning of the year anyway, for multiple reasons. But we're gonna bring this back up and to see where she landed, to see how it felt, because I don't, I think this exercise is amazing. I, and I've never thought to have someone do it, of just the holidays. Because we all go over budget. We all know that's gonna happen, but the reason we do is because they're, they're one-offs. They are special things. There's no way to go into December and just like automatically inflate all of your budget. Um, and it's

Rachel Duncan: 8:01

a powerful thing when you have it listed in your app or however you're tracking your money, say, in February, and you're looking through and it's like holiday specialness. What if I put 50 bucks in it in February? Right? And so then, you know, let's try not to be over budget, you know? We probably need more in those sinking funds. Like I like just having an easy savings account connected with your checking. It might not be high interest because it's for these annual things. Yeah. You know, for these seasonal things. And I have found that being one of the most financially empowering things I've done for me and my family and teaching to my clients and my clients putting together, oh, that's the reason I got in debt.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 8:36

Because it's a big number. It can

Rachel Duncan: 8:38

really add up. Yeah, absolutely.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 8:39

Big number when you add it up.

Rachel Duncan: 8:41

Yeah.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 8:41

Instead

Rachel Duncan: 8:42

of just like feeling regret and, oh, I should just hold back next year. I mean, sure, according to values, but also what if it's simply important to you? What if you do like me and this New Year's thing, it's a, it's something I love and I buy like a$90 bottle of scotch every year.'cause we have this whole scotch drinking ritual. It's a whole thing. So like that's not something I wanna hold back on. I actually, that was one of my notes is what scotch I bought last year. Macallan, everyone. Macallan was the winner. Um, so, you know, like that's important to me. I'm not gonna go do like bargain basement for that particular thing. So it's like, well let's, let's help our future selves out by throughout the year, ideally putting a little money into that. And of course, it's not always gonna be realistic every month, but I think having that little reminder, oh, it feels so good to have, you know, a little bit set aside so that the holidays aren't so stressful and aren't adding to credit card debt.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 9:32

So you speak of credit card debt? This is an exercise that I haven't done, but I've, I've spoken to many that have done this before. So they have a specific credit card, and it could be for the holidays, it could be whatever it, it is a credit card designed for. Something, whatever in your budget. It's um, and what they do is either they've opened a new credit card, or it's a credit card they don't use, but it's designed for this. They will put payments of, we'll say 50 bucks a month or whatever it is in it before they even spend on it. So there's a giant credit within their credit card. Now, the reason they do this is twofold. One, because if it's in your savings that's attached to your checking, it's very easy to just. Spend it. Right? And it does take a little more effort to, to swipe a car. However, now they also have it built in there and it won't hurt their credit. It actually improves their credit and it sits on there. Now, some people will be like, well, you're not getting interest for it. You're not really getting interest in the savings county there. So it's not, that's not what we're talking about for these needs because it's

Rachel Duncan: 10:26

so midterm, you're not getting that much interest. Like we're talking six months. Actually, I have a question though. If you, I've never done that, paid on a credit card that has a 0% balance and it wouldn't e, it wouldn't refund it to you. It actually keeps it as a credit.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 10:39

It'll keep it.

Rachel Duncan: 10:40

Yep. Now that's a hot tip, everyone. That's a

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 10:42

hot tip. Check into your credit cards. There's certain ones that will, there's certain amount you can put on there. Gotcha. There's there's variables to this situation. Yeah. But then you have that. Then you can go use your credit card and then you can. You can also do that. So I

Rachel Duncan: 10:55

like that. And it's a lot better than overpaying your taxes and getting the refund, but it's kind of a similar idea. I'm gonna overpay on this to get the refund. That's cool.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 11:02

And then obviously if you end up going over budget that year, well then it's on your credit card. Right? And it's gonna be a smaller amount, which is something you can ship away at next year, right? Or even if you decide to do it this year and implement it this year, you might rack that up on the credit card. But now that you've done that math and it is 50 bucks a month, start paying down on it. Right. And then you can keep ahead and just use that one for this event or this, you know, whatever. It's,

Rachel Duncan: 11:26

and if there's a way we can think of this, of either, you know, adding to the credit card credit or into a savings account as a monthly bill, right, as a monthly bill, then we get less thrown off. You know, I have this, this exercise where there's. Whole, I have this huge list of annual expenses and, you know, we, we put even a good estimate. You know, sometimes you don't know, it's often about cars, pets, things like that, holidays, you know, and it's often at four figures a month on average, but you don't know when it's gonna happen. And that's kind of the power of getting more comfortable, holding onto a little more money than you might think, uh, by the end of the month. And just, if you have money, let's say left, and you're checking at the end of the month, that's probably because you had a, none of those random things happened that month. You know? It's just that like, oh, the car didn't have a repair. It's just because, oh, the, the, the dog didn't need surgery or there wasn't a major holiday. So, you know, I dunno if you know about Tiffany. Alicia, you know Tiffany Cliche? No, our sister, the budget nea. Okay. Her book. Get good with money is a great one. I really recommend it as like a personal finance 1 0 1 and she talks about be like a squirrel. So like in, in the summer, squirrels take all their nuts and they hide it'cause they know winter is coming. And I use that metaphor a lot. Like let's say you have a pretty normal month, so then that's when you store your nuts way for the winter. Especially for something like Christmas or a seasonal thing. Yeah. When you have a lower spend month, that's when you wanna save those nuts away and not spend those, or not eat the nuts. Love

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 12:52

it. Love it. And ultimately everyone what we're talking about is yes, figuring out your budget. And it'd be great if we put on our calendars when our annual bills are, but we never do. It's not a, it's not a normal thing. Like if you do, we do the best we

Rachel Duncan: 13:02

can.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 13:02

Kudos.'cause that's not something I even do. Um, but it's also staying within your lane with your budget, right? Because. You're gonna have fat months and you're gonna have lean months, and it's what you do in both of those months that really dictate at the end of the year what outcome you came up with. Did we blow our budget outta the water and now we're in a hole and we have credit card debt? Or are we ahead, or we, we hit our numbers exactly where we want them. It comes down to making sure during those fat or lean months that you are, you're doing something correctly. And I think the, the nut anal, the nut analogy is a great one. At the end of this episode, we're talking about, Hey, let's make a list for craziness and chaos of of the holidays. That way we're prepared for next year and this year you're actually gonna track more of the spending to put away Yeah. As a budgeted item going forward. Yeah. Where'd this come from? Right? Like I, I mean like where did this, did it just aha to you, or did you just like start doing it? Like where did the idea come from?

Rachel Duncan: 13:58

Well, I'm trying to remember. I don't know if I can remember an exact aha moment, but something has reinforced it for me, which was a very good Hidden Brain episode. Hidden Brain is a wonderful podcast about, um, social sciences, and it was a, it was an episode all about our future selves. And one thing that happens is, is we. When we, when we are disengaged from our future self, then we, you know, we're making decisions in the present moment. That's totally right. That's gonna be first. Your first decision is always gonna be your present moment. But there is some studies that showed that when people kind of future cast it, right, imagine themselves in one year, in five year, in 10 years, they made different financial choices and even like making a picture of themselves in five years or in 10 years. And this idea that, oh, what I'm doing now is impacting that. Person it's you, but you actually treat it like a person that you are responsible for. That people start changing their present moment behaviors when they have a relationship with their future self. I've actually even had a client took a photo of herself and had AI age it five years or 10 years, and she printed it out and put it on her desk. So like I'm doing this for her. So I think that even though I'm not quite sure how I started this, I think it was me saying out loud, God, how will I remember this next year? And being like, okay, the inner office manager and me is like, put it on the damn calendar. But science really reinforces this is like if we can think of our future selves as a good friend or as you know, an elder that we're responsible for, then. We make really, we can make more aligned decisions for that future person. Or even I think about, oh, I'm gonna do this for tomorrow. Me even like you in an hour, or you in a week. You know, are there some things you can do right now to take care of that person? And there are moments when like this calendar reminder coming up, every time I'm like, oh. Thank you past Rachel that was so caring of you to remember that I won't remember. And so kind of having this relationship with ourselves at different times is a very cool way to, um, set goals and actually make it real because our brains don't really think in the future. I mean, sure we can worry about the future and have that anxiety and stuff, but to think of your future self as a real human being. Um, that you are in relationship with can be a powerful thing.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 16:06

It makes so much sense too because we're, we're naturally wanting to nurture and take care of others. Like that's just, yeah. Human beings are naturally that way. And when you, like, I'm thinking about like any of the things that we just talked about and if I was in the moment of like, oh, I need to do that. I'm just gonna figure it out in the present time, I'll just figure it out for myself. Like, I'm gonna figure it out. But if I'm trying to do it for someone else, I'm going to plan, I'm going to make sure it's done right. And so by taking that and shifting it from a legitimate other person mm-hmm. And it to future self, uh, that's, that's pretty powerful because we would care more them as a person, then we do care about our current self. Now there's layers to that too, that you probably gotta work through, but at least it's a very easy way to. To move that forward.

Rachel Duncan: 16:47

Yeah. And I think it brings a load of, you know, really Yeah, self-compassion and stuff. And if that's something that you're wanting to nurture, it can be a powerful way to do it. And it's not selfish at all. It's, I can really put your, put yourself, you know, in, in your future self's shoes. So I might ask you story. Does that give you any ideas? Like, is there anything that you would like to help your future self out with, even like next week or next year? Does it give you any ideas?

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 17:11

Yeah, um, it does.'cause as soon as you said, Hey, schedule it and, and make a list of it. Like our 12 days of giving every year there's something new that pops up that I don't remember or that I've done before or that I need to do for next year to make things more smooth. Uh, and I always forget and it's always, there's always an episode or two that end up being past the deadline that I had set for myself originally. Because I didn't email enough people soon enough, or I didn't structure it better for that year. Um, so that's like a big one for me, specifically for the series we're talking about. Yeah. Um, is that next year we, you know, it's, it's smooth and we're just trying to smooth that out every year. So I will be taking notes and putting in my calendar to remind myself in July when we start scheduling all of this stuff to do so. Oh.

Rachel Duncan: 17:53

I love that, and it's been an incredible series. You've also run it really well. Oh, I have to say story, but yeah, jot down those, you know, we call'em SOPs or whatever, a little standing op standard operating procedure. Um, and put it on that calendar for, for popping up whenever it needs to get started.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 18:07

For sure. Well, I appreciate you, um, and everyone, happy holidays. Uh, look forward to talking about what Scotch Macallan you picked and what year you picked this year. Also, how this whole exercise worked out for you. As well, Rachel and everyone listening really, truly have a happy holidays and whatever thing you took from this, if you're gonna implement something, why don't you comment, let us know what you decided to do and after the holidays, how it affected and how it felt.

Rachel Duncan: 18:33

I would love to hear those stories too.

Stoy Hall, CFP®: 18:36

Thank you.