Thinking Through Gift Giving This Christmas Season.

Summary

In this episode of the Earn Your Title podcast, Danny Dumas shares his strategies for budgeting and selecting Christmas gifts for his family. He emphasizes the importance of thoughtful giving, setting a budget, and focusing on quality over quantity. Danny discusses the 'three gift philosophy' inspired by the gifts given to Jesus, and encourages listeners to consider their family values when choosing gifts. He also touches on the significance of being mindful about the impact of gifts on family dynamics and the joy of giving.

Takeaways

• We budget a total amount for gifts each year.
• The three gift philosophy helps manage expectations.
• Quality gifts can create lasting memories.
• Consider family values when choosing gifts.
• It's okay if kids don't react as expected to gifts.
• Thoughtful giving can have a greater impact.
• Set aside a portion of the budget for last-minute gifts.
• Gifts should encourage family togetherness.
• Teaching kids about the value of giving is important.
• Accountability can help improve life satisfaction.

Chapters

00:00 Budgeting for Christmas Gifts
03:03 The Three Gift Philosophy
08:13 Quality Over Quantity in Gift Giving
12:01 The Importance of Thoughtful Giving

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Transcript

0:05

Check one two check one two check check check check check Hey guys, my name's Alvin. What is this sound so? Check one, two. Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, two, one, two. Check one, two, check. Hey guys, my name is Danny Dumas and this is the earn your title podcast. Today we're talking about Christmas gifts. I had an episode a couple of episodes ago where I talked about things you could give your family or your kids that wasn't monetary, but let's be honest, they do still want gifts for Christmas. So I'm going to share with you kind of my strategies on, you know, how much money I spend, my thought process on buying gifts, and maybe this will help you try to figure out and make the holidays merry. The first thing I did, actually did a poll out on Facebook and the question was, how do you budget? And I got a lot of responses. There's basically three ways that people budget. One, and this is kind of how we do it in our household. We come up with a dollar for gifts, know, call it $2,000, whatever it is, I have gift, we're gonna give for Christmas. And we try to stay within that. This works for us because we have kids of, you from six to 16 and little kids gifts aren't quite as expensive and big kids gifts are more expensive. And so just to say I'm going to spend $200 on each kid doesn't necessarily, you know, it doesn't always work. And so you end up, you know, we ended up spending more on one kid and taking the budget from him. So we just say in general, we're going to spend this much on our kids or this much on our family or this much total. But a lot of people said they picked the budget per kid. And they stuck with it. And then there was quite a lot of people that said they gave until they felt like it was right. And that's probably a lot of Americans. We don't like to do that because, you can always give more. It is very tempting to, you know, go out, especially if you're like ahead of the game, which is nice to be done by December 1st and just kind of have all everything bought. But then you see something like, that would be nice. that would be nice. So we do like to set a budget. stick to the budget and maybe leave like 10%. Like don't spend the whole budget 10 % cause there it is always that last, you know, the whatever happens the last five days before Christmas is kind of, you know, it's up in the air. So I would encourage you to come up with a plan and I like to actually have the cash. Like I know we purchased a lot of things online, but I like to have the whatever the thousand bucks in my pocket as I see it, I'll put it back in the bank if I'm buying stuff online, but I do like to have the cash. It just makes it real as it goes away. Then the next question is, How many gifts? We really like the idea that Jesus, baby Jesus got three gifts and so are you. And we come from a large family. So our kids are gonna get gifts from all their cousins, from two sets of grandparents. So they're going to be getting a lot of things and just having this massive pile of gifts in the morning, whether they have three or 30 from us, it doesn't seem like it makes things better. So we like to go with the idea of giving three gifts. And I kind of break these down into categories. One of them, which is a really good category, is the thing they really, really want. And there usually is something like that. And something we've implemented with our older kids is we all use Apple products. So they have the Notes app that you can share with other people. And they just make a list. And we'll tell them usually around October, hey, start thinking about Christmas. You know, put it on a list. and put links to it. It's amazing. Like it is the way to go. We can go on the list and go, there's 12 things on this list. You know, what fits into our budget? What do they really want out of this whole list? And then there's a link. You click on it and you go buy it or you go to the store and get the right size. I do this for my wife. I send her a list. These are, know, if you're to get me something, anything on this list will, will be awesome. And I, and when I put my list out, I, I get a $20 gift and usually I like throw a Rolex on there because you never know. Maybe she, you know, I've got a bonus at work or something. But just one, get them something they really want. We usually try to get them something they really need. That, know, whatever the thing is in the room or clothing, something that just would make their life better, something that they need to get. We're probably gonna be buying it at some point here. This is a good time to do that. And the third one is something that will make their life better and kind of line up with your values. And this is where I do think it's important to kind of... put a little bit of thought into the gift giving process. For instance, I was on TikTok and they started, there was a projector and it was cheap. It was like 50 bucks and it made this big giant screen. I thought, man, that would be so cool to get my son for his room. He's got a big blank wall. That would be awesome. It's not super expensive, 50 bucks. Have this big room, watch YouTube videos in there. But I think I thought I kind of went back to some of our values and one of our values as an inner family is to spend quality time together. And so I asked the question, does that gift lined up with my values, with our values, what I want with my kid? Am I purchasing something that's going to remove him from our family? Again, a day to day basis. And the answer is probably yes. I don't want him in his room watching movies by himself. I want him to come up and watch as a family. So I decided, you know, that's not the gift we're gonna give him. I wanna buy him something that can bring him together. And when I grew up, there was things that we bought. I remember when I was 13, we got a foosball table. And that purchase, that family purchase that my dad and mom made, I mean that Santa brought us, was awesome, it was awesome. And I got it when, was a funny story, I got it when I was probably 13. And we, if you haven't listened before, my family is super competitive. And for about two years playing football with my dad, he never let me win. Like he never just like, you know, went easy. He beat me every year for two years. And I remember I was right around 15 and hey, Danny will play football. Yeah. So we're playing, we're playing and it's getting close. You know, you play to 10 and you know, I'm up by, you know, two and then he comes up, we tie it. I think I beat him like 10 to seven and 10 to eight, something like that. And I looked up from the table and I realized I just beat my dad at foosball. Like I am now a man. You know, like that was that moment of like, Whoa, that just happened. That was really cool. And that came from a, from a Christmas gift. It allowed us to, you know, to do something as a family. So really think about your priorities of what you're, where are you going to go? The other thing I, I, I'm trying to value, I'm trying to instill in my kids is to buy quality that lasts. You know, when my son was 13, I wanted to get him a pocket knife and I had two options. I could go like the cheap, know, just here's a pocket knife. But I wanted him to have something that would last forever. So I bought him a Benchmade, which is a very nice knife. And it was probably double what I could have gotten for the cheap, you know, the Walmart target, you know, just go buy the pocket knife. This was like a, it's not custom, but it's, it's a nice quality tool that he can have forever. And that's something we try to get for our kids, something that will last them forever. Last year, Matilda got a sewing machine. It's something that she could do that like she wanted one, but it's going to make her life better. She's going to have a skill. And so put a little bit of thought into it. You know, like the, gaming systems, I think I have mixed bags because I'm not really a gamer, but maybe you buying the newest gaming system and you are a gamer. That would be something that would bring you and your kids close together because you're doing it with them. So just put some thought. into how much you're going to spend, what types of presents you're going to give them, and do they line up with your family values. And the other thing is just take some of the stress out of it. No matter what, they're going to wake up in the morning and they're going to open gifts. One of them is going to be excited about everything. One of them might not show any emotion because that's just not how they are. One of them is going to say they're bored a couple hours later. But just realize your job is to put a little bit of thought into the gifts, have a plan, give it to them, and then whatever their reaction is, try not to get upset. I know there's some parents, you want this magical, when they open it up, their eyes sparkle. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't. It all depends on kids. I had some gifts that, I got a book one year, and I don't think for the book. But that book was called Into Thin Air. And that book was about mountain climbing and a disaster on Mount Everest. And it was very cool. That book changed my life because I didn't, you obviously I didn't, I hadn't read it yet. My mom knew I was kind of into rock climbing. She got me this book. I think it truly changed my life. I went on to climb some really big mountains and I think that was the seed that put me on some really amazing adventures. But when I got the gift, I didn't react like, my, this is exactly what I wanted a book. Thank you so much. I gave him hugs and ran around. That was, it was like, thank you. And so like mitigate your response or your expectations to your gift based on how much you spend or maybe the gift just falls flat. Maybe the gift you give, it's going to be the box that it came in that your kids spent, you know, the most time and just realize that it's okay. You know, like the idea of giving is it's twofold. One, the person that receives something is obviously giving or getting, which is, which is good for them. I had kind of a, I get to have a moral lesson with my kids. We were driving and there was, and there's a certain area in the city that I work in where there's always panhandlers. Every intersection in this one block area, there's someone with a sign, you know, anything helps, God bless. We're looking for a job. Do you have any extra money? I'll give free smiles. I think they actually do market research because they're always having some new sign up. And I, you know, talking to the kids like, What do you think about giving money to this guy? Which, you know, what should we do? And they, they're like, well, you know, yeah, I think it would be nice. I'm like, so what do think he's going to spend this money on? And I, like, I, I know these people, we've literally, we, we take care of them. like when they call 911, they don't have a doctor, they live outside. I, I have integrated experiences with this group of people. It's who I take care of. So I said, what do you, if we gave them this guy $5, what do think he's going to do for it? with it. And then they like, well, you know, maybe, maybe he's going to go buy some food. Maybe he's going to do this. I said, more than likely he's going to walk up to that party store that's just up the hill. And because there's a party store right around the corner, he's going to buy alcohol with it. What do you think about that? And they're like, I don't, I wouldn't want to do that. And so I got to roll it back. I'm like, listen, if you ever decide to give to somebody, you're doing a good thing. It's not on you to decide how they use that, but as a policy, as, as just an overall life value. If you know giving somebody something isn't going to help them and you can do something else instead that would help them, then do that. And that's the, that's the, power, you know, the power of giving is that it's, good. Don't ever worry about giving, but if you can put a little bit of thought into how you're giving, what you're giving and when you're going to give, I think everything just kind of turns out. It sets the expectations for you up a little bit. And know, this obviously is a little bit bigger than Christmas, but you know, when you're thinking about giving in your life, just think about, you know, what is it? Like, you know, if the environment's really important, you don't buy a bunch of plastic junk, you know, buy some quality toys that they can pass down to generations. You we just bought our daughter a winter jacket because we live in Michigan and you have to have a winter jacket. It has a spot for her name on it. I thought this was so cool. underneath it is another spot and another spot. They want you to give this jacket to somebody else and have them write their name in it and then do it again. you know, think through the giving. Give, be happy, enjoy your Christmas. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. If you're not really enjoying your life right now, if life is tough for you, if you're going through some problems, I wanna help. There's not a fee associated with this. I literally wanna have conversations with guys that listen to this show. and just need someone to be accountable. You know, I'm not a professional coach. I'm not a counselor. I can't help you with your past history, but I can help you going forward. can't help keep you accountable. reach out. My email is Danny at Danny Dumas.com and I want to help. I've been talking to some guys and it, you know, it is the purpose of this podcast because if I can make you better or if I can help you become better, then the world becomes better. And that's my little contribution to, to making something, to making a legacy too. to changing the world. If I can help you change, then you can help others change and it's a snowball effect and that's what I want to do. So reach out to me, daniadaniadumas.com and I can't wait to hear from you. So my name is Danny Dumas and this is the Ernie Tidal Podcast and I will talk to you later. Bye.