The Secret to Avoid Christmas Debt (Most Men Miss This)

Feeling the financial pressure of Christmas? Between gifts, travel, and family events, most men overspend and pay the price in January. In this episode, Don shares practical ways to avoid Christmas debt, reduce money stress, and still create a meaningful, joyful holiday for your family.

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Question for You
What’s one money move that’s helped you stick to a budget at Christmas? Drop your answer below — your insight could help another man find some peace this year.

⏰ TIMECODES
00:00 Introduction: The Financial Stress of Christmas
03:39 Personal Stories: Christmas Spending Mistakes
06:26 Tips for a Financially Stress-Free Christmas
06:35 Setting Priorities and Budgeting
10:42 The Importance of Generosity
12:26 Conclusion: A Joyful and Debt-Free Christmas

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#ManhoodTribes #MensGrowth #ChristmasBudget #DebtFreeChristmas #HolidayStress

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Transcript

Don Ross: 0:00

It is Christmas time men and tis the season for peace and joy. At least for some of us it is because for a lot of us, uh, it's actually the season of financial stress between the pressure to buy gifts, host meals, cover travel expenses, and do all the things to make for a joyful Christmas, we actually end up stressing ourselves out, worrying about how much we're spending and what January is gonna look like when we have to deal with the debt. Of Christmas. What if we could approach Christmas differently so that we do it with clarity and confidence around our finances and without any kind of resentment or guilt as we move into the new year? I think that would actually bring us the kind of peace that we're hoping for in the season. So let's talk about that today here on the Manhood Tribe Show. My name is Dawn. I'm your host here at Manhood Tribes, and I'm really glad to be with you guys during this Christmas time season. Uh, this is one of my just favorite times of the year. I really do love everything about Christmas. I look forward to it. I am one of those guys who says, uh, Christmas doesn't need to start until after Thanksgiving. Thank you very much. Like. Please hold off on the music and the decorations, but I'm not really a scrooge about that. I just know that if I can make myself wait a little bit longer, then I will actually be able to enjoy all of that stuff once it does arrive, and I won't feel burnt out on it by the time that Christmas actually gets here. I know some people love to put up the decorations like as soon as Halloween is done, or sometimes even sooner than that. But for me that just, that just spoils it. That spoils the actual day and takes away from the meaning of what Christmas should be about. So I want to wait. But another thing that I know can really take away the meaning of Christmas is how much of a financial stress Christmas can really be for us as men, especially because more often than not, we men are the providers in our homes who. We're the ones who are managing the budgets. We're paying attention to the finances, and we know what all of that gift giving and family hosting and travel expenses and all of those things added up is actually going to do to our budget. And the credit card bill just keeps getting higher and higher and the looming debt and the looming pain of the. Winter months that come after Christmas is gonna feel even more intense. There's nothing fun or joyful about that, and yet that can kind of be what our culture pressures us into. We think that we need to do Christmas bigger and better every year, and we think we need to get our wives and our. Kids and our girlfriends, you know, something extra special and, and that means that we need to spend a lot of money on it in order for that to be the thing that makes it work. Or we feel pressure from extended family members to have to come be with them, to travel near them, to, you know, afford a hotel room and a rental car and a whatever else to be able to, you know, make the trip work that we can spend time with our family around the holidays. All of those things can be great, but they also can just be really crushing. They can leave us feeling like, was all of that money actually worth it? Did I actually enjoy and get anything out of this Christmas season other than stress and debt? That's not what any of us want from Christmas. So how can we think about how to do it all differently so that we can arrive in January in the new year with a season with a season of peace that actually follows the piece of Christmas? How can we maintain that along with us, especially as it relates to our finances? I'll tell you a story. Uh, I'll tell you a couple stories actually of some ways that I've done it not so well, and then actually a way that we did it well. So early on in our marriage, my wife and I, uh, we weren't making a lot of money, but we wanted to be able to enjoy Christmas. And so we actually like probably spent more than we should. We sort of set a budget limit, but you know, I think both of us sort of felt the desire to just kind of not worry about that too much. And so we bought more than we should and we put it on the credit card. And, uh, it was fun. Like we enjoyed, you know, the presents that we got on Christmas and it was nice to just kind of feel the, the freedom and the flexibility of getting some nice things for each other without having to worry about the money.'cause we felt like we kinda had to worry about money all year long and it was nice to just kind of like take the pressure off for a little bit. But then come January, you know, we had a bill, credit card bill, and it took us several months actually to pay off that credit card bill. It was probably April, maybe even May, before we finally had it completely paid off from what we had put it put on it. During Christmas, and I'll be honest, by the time we had the thing paid off, I couldn't even remember what we got each other for Christmas. I mean, it was really kind of like, okay, this was too much. Like we enjoyed the moment of the gift giving, but then it brought us a lot of pain after that and it just wasn't worth it because the gifts weren't all that significant. They weren't the kinds of things that lasted and that we were remembered forever. They were just sort of like. Temporary joys. And in that temporary joy we brought ourselves a lot more long-term pain and frustration and that wasn't good. We had to cut back on other things during those months while we were paying off the credit card bill. And that was more stressful than was worth the brief joy that we got out of Gift Giving on Christmas. Now, fast forward a few years and we got a little better at that. We figured out how to actually. Not just set a budget limit for ourselves, but actually to like try to build gifts that were not just about spending money. So we kind of talked about like how could we create experiences for each other, even if they were cheap experiences, but that things, things that were meaningful for each other that we actually would enjoy doing. And so we created some like special occasions for each other that were built around things that we each loved and that we each enjoyed. And that actually was way more fun, not only to like. Enjoy the gift when it finally did happen, but to actually craft it, to put it together, to think about, oh, what's my wife really gonna like here? And doing that kind of budgeted gift giving actually made it more fun and more enjoyable to figure out what we had come up for each other. Now, those are the kinds of things that I want you to think about as you think about how to set a realistic budget for yourselves for Christmas. So as you're doing this, here's, here's a few things that I want to kind of give you some tips on to think about. How do you think about your finances around Christmas time? So the first is to really start with your priorities. Okay? Now, you as an individual or you as a couple, or you as a family, your priorities might be different than other people's priorities, and that's really okay. Where it gets hard is when your priorities might be different from each other's priorities, and so that's where you really have to kind of talk it through and figure out what's the best way to be able to preserve joy and peace throughout the season. And especially how to do that as it relates to your finances. Maybe she wants more of a gift and you want more of an experience. Or maybe she values spending a little more at Christmas because she's not as concerned about, you know, what the budget looks like and you value being conservative because you don't want to deal with the credit card debt. Okay? So you've gotta talk those things through and figure out how you can both get on the same page in a way that honors each other. You also have to do the same thing with your kids in mind. I know that, uh, my wife and I can really fall guilty to like, okay, maybe we won't spend as much money on each other, but we're gonna spend a lot of money on the kids this year because we've got some really exciting things that we want to get them. Or they have some big ticket items that they really want. And the joy of giving your kids fun gifts, uh, can be really great at Christmas. You know, they tend to be more full of wonder and excitement about gifts on Christmas than adults do. And so, uh, it can be really fun to actually kind of go overboard on them a little. Bit, but then you not only like leave each other out of the picture to some extent, but you still also end up with all of that debt that are probably on things that your kids are also gonna forget in a very short amount of time. So get everybody on the same page. Start with your priorities. Figure out what those things are. Maybe it's gifts, maybe it's experiences, maybe it's travel and being with family, and you wanna make sure that you prioritize that. Even over gifts. All of that's okay. Just figure out what works for you and how to be able to do it. Well, the next thing that you need to do is actually start with a limit. And how you figure out the limit can really be up to how you handle budgeting in your family. Maybe you've got some money already saved up and you're just gonna use that money for Christmas gifts, and so you're doing it that way. Maybe you've racked up some credit card points over the course of the year and you're gonna just use those to be able to buy a Christmas gifts. Or you've got a little bit of money and some, you know, bonus points to be able to use. Maybe you know that you're gonna dip into savings for a little bit for Christmas, but you're gonna be able to replenish that savings within, you know, X amount of time in the new year. And so it's okay to be able to do that. All of that is fine. What I would not encourage you to do is to go into any kind of debt because of Christmas gifts. It just isn't worth it. You're gonna give yourselves more pain. And pain actually takes away the joy and the peace that you're trying to bring with the gift giving in the first place. So do everything you can to avoid extra debt at Christmas and just let what you can afford be the kinds of things that bring you joy and that bring your family members joy as well. Decide what your budget is going to be and stick to it because you've thought it through together. Now you need to think about all the things together, gifts. Parties, travel, all of those kinds of, you know, things that you're doing for Christmas need to be factored into the whole picture, or otherwise, your budget can blow up pretty, pretty quick. Maybe you've thought about gifts, but you haven't really factored in the cost of, oh gosh, now we gotta buy four plane tickets to fly everybody out to see grandma. You know, or whatever it is. And that wasn't really factored into the budget all of a sudden. Things get really hard because you left that part out of the picture, so just make sure that you include all of that, and if it means that you need to cut back on one thing in order to be able to afford the other thing, that's okay. It's even okay to disappoint some extended family members. If your budget just doesn't allow you to do what your extended family would like you to do this year. You just have to have the courage to be able to tell them, Hey. We love you guys. We want to be able to see you. We won't be able to do it this year at Christmas. Let's make a plan for when we can do it next, but we just don't have the resources to be able to pull that off this year. One more thing that you also probably want to factor into your budget is just generosity. The experience of Christmas is all about loving and caring for others, and so figuring out how you incorporate that into your Christmas season and your Christmas budget is really important. Maybe you have. Some money that you wanna set aside to give a little extra to your church during this season. Or maybe you want to visit a nonprofit or a food bank or a homeless shelter or something like that during this season and be able to chip in and contribute a little extra there. Maybe you've got some other project that your kids are involved in through their school, and you want to be able to help out with that. Maybe you just want to create some kind of thing to do that you can get your family involved in and help remind them that. Christmas isn't just about materialism. It's actually about loving and caring for others, and there's ways to do that that aren't just about buying each other expensive gifts that we need to care for others who maybe can't afford any kind of gifts at all, but we can do something really special and unique for them. If you don't have any ideas on how to do that, reach out to a local church near you, even if you're not a church goer yourself. Most churches do community oriented things around Christmas, like, uh, gift drives or toy drives or feeding, uh, people or any kind of, some churches do like. Dinners for the homeless or clothing drives, or all kinds of just ways of being able to help out the community during the Christmas season. So reach out to a local church and just find out what are they doing and can you get involved and help. You don't have to start going to that church, but you might actually find that some of the things that they're doing allow you to be generous in ways that you wouldn't normally be otherwise, and that can be a great thing to do at Christmas. Now look, all of the stuff that we're talking about, budgeting, gift giving, uh, planning, financially, thinking about how to be generous, all of those things are really just skills. Skills is one of the things that we talk about here at Manhood Tribes a lot. It's one of our. Five marks of manhood and learning to grow in the area of skill is a great way to be able to level up your ability of what it means to be a man. The way that you can figure that out is actually through a free quiz that I've created called How Manly Are You? And it's a perfect way to see how you measure up in terms of the five marks of manhood and what you need to do to be able to get. Better at being a man. So if you go to manhood tribes.com/manly, you can download that free quiz right there and learn how you can improve not only in skill, but in all the five marks of manhood as well. Okay. Now as you're thinking about what Christmas is gonna look like, when you have been able to maintain a budget, hit the priorities that you wanted to hit, have some generosity built in along the way, and arrive at January with some peace, I want you to imagine what that picture is gonna look like. I want you to imagine Christmas morning. The joy that everyone is experiencing as their opening gifts, learning of the things that they got, that they're gonna get to do with you and with each other, uh, through the experiences that you've created, the fun that everybody's gonna have, getting together with extended family and that nothing hanging over you has anything to do with finances. You're not worried about the fact that maybe you spent too much, you aren't dreading the credit card payment that's gonna come up in January. You're not thinking about where you're gonna have to cut corners with your budget. You're able to carry over the peace and the joy of Christmas into the new year because you are free in terms of how you have handled your finances. And as a man, instead of resenting what you or your wife or girlfriends spent, you actually can feel proud of yourself as a man for how you led your family well, to be able to manage your shared resources this Christmas season. Christmas becomes about presence it becomes about connection, it becomes about generosity, and all of those things are possible because you didn't make it about debt and regret by spending too much money. That's the kind of Christmas experience that you're looking for. That's the kind of new year that you want to head into, and all of that is possible if you'll just make a simple plan devoted to your priorities and really try to stick to it together as a couple or as a family this year at Christmas. Now guys, I hope that this has been really helpful for you and has given you some good insights in terms of how to think about what to do this year at Christmas with regards to your finances. I would love for you to put a comment down in the comment section below where you just say, what's one money move that you've made that has helped you stick to a budget at Christmas? Maybe your comment can help out another guy who's feeling a little stuck or a little anxious about how he's handling his own money, and that can be the way that helps him find some freedom this year at Christmas. Okay. I hope that's helpful and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Right here on the Manhood Tribe Show. We'll talk again soon.