Stronger Marriage Connection

Choose Intention Over Impulse For A Happier Holiday Budget | Amanda Christensen | #157

• Utah Marriage Comission • Season 4 • Episode 157

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We dig into holiday spending habits with Amanda Christensen and show how couples can protect peace and pocketbooks. From impulse triggers to simple tools and a revolving savings plan, we share practical steps to keep joy high and stress low.

• impulse buying traps and how to slow down
• agreeing a shared goal for the season
• setting a total budget and four key categories
• choosing cash for high-risk spending areas
• using price trackers to time purchases
• organizing gifts with lists and simple apps
• planning for hidden costs and last year’s data
• revolving savings that fund December in advance
• a mantra to reduce comparison and pressure

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Dr. Dave Schramm:

http://drdaveschramm.com

http://drdavespeaks.com

Dr. Liz Hale:

http://www.drlizhale.com/

SPEAKER_01:

Overspending during the holidays is such an easy trap to fall into, right? Best of lights, kids' wish lists, one too many add-to-cart moments. It adds up. In today's episode, Liz and I chat with Amanda Christensen about smart, stress-saving ways to protect your wallet this season. We cover everything from simple couple conversations and realistic holiday budgets to helpful apps, websites, and strategies you can put to work right away. Amanda's insights will help you keep the joy high, the stress low, and the budget intact, even when those surprise expenses pop up. Amanda Christensen is an extension professor and accredited financial counselor responsible for statewide personal finance education through USU Extension. She's editor of the Utah Money Mom's blog. She and her team are the recipients of two consecutive best of state awards for efforts to improve financial wellness across the state. You can view their live webinar schedule or request a free class for your group at finance.usu.edu backslash EFW. On a Sunday afternoon, you'll find Amanda sipping a diet coke with lime at the kitchen table over a 1,000-piece puzzle, listening to an audiobook. We hope you enjoy the show. Hey there, friends. Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Stronger Marriage Connection Podcast. I'm Dr. Dave, alongside Dr. Liz Hale, and we are bringing you the very best that we have in research and resources, along with a few tips and tools to help you create the marriage of your dreams. And Liz, it's the holiday season. I love that you're wearing red for those who are watching on YouTube. Yeah, Liz looks fabulous wearing red. It is the season we it's known as one of the happiest times of the year for many people, but it can also be one of the most stressful times of the year for couples. And one of the biggest reasons is money.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm already feeling it, Dave. I'm already feeling the crunch. We have Santa Claus coming and 14, 16 kids. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01:

The holiday spending could be really stressful. So back by popular demand is USU Extensions one and only Moneymaster, Amanda Christensen. Welcome back to the show, Amanda.

SPEAKER_03:

Hey, thanks for having me. It's great to be here with both of you. Happy December.

SPEAKER_05:

Happy December.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, yes. Amanda, it's great to have you back. It's the holiday season, and that means a lot of purchases and extra expenses. In fact, according to recent studies, the average amount spent on impulsive purchases during the holiday season, get this, Liz, is around$280 per impulse buy.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

With 59% of Americans admitting to engaging in impulsive holiday shopping. I'm guessing that's probably closer to like 99%, right? No, holiday impulse buying, it's hard for many of us. Amanda, everywhere you turn, there's a limited time offer or flash sale or buy one, get one. Uh Amanda, what are your best tips for slowing down those impulse purchases and staying grounded when the holiday hype kicks in?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, two scenarios come to mind. So let's see if listeners can fit themselves into. I've been in both of these scenarios before. The first is a for you've procrastinated gift buying, right? And it's something that now, and for whatever reason, sometimes the holidays are difficult for people to lean into. And so that can cause some delay in uh getting prepared with gift purchasing, right? Also, uh, there's another scenario which is common for me, to buy early, finish shopping, and get sucked into buying more as December progresses. So I I've been in both of these scenarios before, and listeners can probably relate to both of those scenarios that where you know impulse purchases uh really really affect us in either one. So something that really helped me when I procrastinated was dedicating a day to getting it all done. Because the fewer times you visit the stores, the less impulsive spending has its effect, right? So if that's you, consider taking a day off work or just grab your McDonald's Diet Coke on a Saturday and knock it out. Whatever it takes to get just to get it done. And then for the buy early folks, I think what tends to happen is we finish shopping, but we continue to get the spend, spend, spend messaging, and it's coming right to our our inbox, it's coming right on our phones when we open up any social media. So I like the mantra, I have what I need, and what I have is enough. And that really helps me to remind myself that I am good. I I have prepared, I have checked the list, and I can just be engaged with that messaging. I also unfollow influencers on social media for the month of December, and I unsubscribe from promotional emails. Now, I'll tell you, I I love my influencers. I love my influencer friends, but I I come back in January, but I un I unfollow during the month of December. So those are some tips I think to help with in culture spending.

SPEAKER_05:

I love that. That is great. I have what I need, and what I have is enough. Gonna put that up. I think not just for the month of December, but for every month of the year, Amanda. I love that. And I and I also love that there are different budgeting personalities. Some folks track every penny, more like my husband, and some just wing it, more like his wife. How can listeners figure out their budgeting style and maybe still stay in control of their holiday spending?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I think um your budgeting style is yours and it's unique to your experiences. It changes over the over your lifetime, too. Sometimes when we've got to track every penny, we're a little more tight or we're a little more in the details. And maybe other times we don't have to do that, and so we automate bill pays and we pay our bills automatically, we save automatically invest automatically, and then kind of forget. And we don't have to track as as closely. But I think for holidays specifically, um I really like I really like finding some way that we could be in connection with a spouse. If if we are managing this with a spouse or partner in some way, I like the idea that we we would connect or communicate about our our overall holiday spending budget or what what's our goal? What what are we trying to accomplish this year? Is it an experience? Is it helping our adult kids with some things they really need? Uh, you know, like what is the overall goal? And then uh letting letting that sort of guide the spending. Uh also I my husband and I love divvying out. We uh we we love switching off every year. Who um who plays, who helps Santa Claus uh with doing things like stocking stuffers and and stuff like that, so that um you know your fun personality can sh can you can take turns doing some of that really fun stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so Amanda, I think a lot of people feel torn between wanting to create this magical holiday season and uh you know not not blowing the budget. And and I I often even think sometimes, Amanda, that um the people want to give the Christmases maybe that they never had, you know, growing up, and I don't want my child to feel like they don't have anything, so I'm gonna I'm gonna spend whatever it takes. Or the opposite of we had amazing Christmases, and I want my child to have that experience, even though you know it took my parents several years to save up. And we're barely, you know, I have a one-year-old, but man, I'm gonna go all in on this. So, in your experience, what are some realistic ways the families can cut costs without losing the holiday cheer? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, that's a great insight, Dave. I think you're spot on there. And I have three things that come to mind that can be most helpful. The first is gonna seem really simple, but it's to have a game plan and it's just a holiday spending game plan. It's where we've we've um intentionally thought through the ways that we want to make the holidays special and where we're going to be all in and where we're going to maybe try to cut back so we can do the things that are most important to us. If we haven't talked with our significant other about traditions, gifts, uh, food, travel, you know, then that's where a lot of conflict can come in too. And so I think when we're budgeting for the holidays, we've got to talk a game plan as far as how much are we going to spend in total in these different areas? And then I also really like some advice I was given, and the the statistics back this up as well, to consider using cash for for one aspect of holiday purchases. Now, I'm I love my credit card points. So I get that sometimes this advice feels a little off. However, if cutting back or if really, if looking at them, the the budget is really important. Studies from all, you know, Stanford, MIT, all the people show that people tend to spend 20% less when you're using only cash. And it also reduces impulse spending up to 30%. So here's my recommendation. If something like holiday decorations or food for specific holiday events are areas where you want to really watch the budget, pull the cash out. And when it's gone, it's gone. And don't carry around hundreds of dollars in cash, but pull the cash out for those specific pieces and know that you've got some flexibility there, but you've also got a limit that's sort of like that forced spending limit that can really be beneficial and you still have plenty to do what's what's most important to you, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it totally makes sense. Because I I sometimes feel that it part of it is just keeping harmony in the marriage because we know you know research, it's not a surprise that money topics are one of the most uh stressful. Uh and then the holiday season ramps up and hey, you spent this on that or a credit card, you charge this, I wasn't aware of this. And so it can create in in the midst of you know this real desire to have this wonderful holiday season, man, it can start to create this rift in the the relationship. And so part of it maybe stems from would you um say, Amanda, just different ways that we feel about money um and and how we grew up between I'm I'm talking now the relationship, right? And how money affects that. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, absolutely. That's that's stemming from uh years of of societal and uh you know, so even media, media affects, society affects, religious belief affects those kinds of things. How we grew up affects affects all of that. So I think sitting down and chatting through your plan with your significant other, if you've never done that, or if you're just on autopilot year after year after year, uh, you know, I think it's really worth a conversation at least. And and I would say one more, one more to this point. For the folks that are looking for the tactile money saving strategies, I really, really like price tracking tools and apps that monitor fluctuations in prices so that you can purchase gifts at the best possible price. So for the people that are really in it, trying to save and you know, that's that's a dopamine hit for me. I like finding where it's the cheapest. It's uh that's part of the fun. So uh camel, camel, camel as in the animal, camel, camel, camel.com. That's the best free Amazon price tracker out there. It allows you to track an item's price, uh price history over time. So you can see if something's a really good deal on Amazon, particularly. Um, there are plenty of other apps. PayPal Honey is a one of the best price trackers for most online retailers. So it's a browser extension that allows you to compare prices from a whole bunch of retailers, not just Amazon. And um, Capital One shopping is the last one I'll mention. This browser extension compares prices from other sellers while you are shopping on Amazon. So it's going to alert you if a product is cheaper elsewhere. And I gotta say, if that's that, those are fun if people are wanting to really lean in to get the best deal.

SPEAKER_05:

I had no idea those existed. That excites me also. I like that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

We'll be right back after this brief message.

SPEAKER_02:

And we're back. Let's dive right in.

SPEAKER_05:

Any of us who want to create a holiday budget, but honestly, we have nowhere to start, no idea where. Uh, what's your simple step-by-step approach to building a budget that actually sticks? That might be the key word there.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. And that might take a few years of refining, but there's four steps. Pretty simple. When I look at creating a realistic holiday budget, the first step is to decide how much I'm spending in total. How much in total do I have for these holiday expenses? And maybe you have a certain amount of money saved already that you can use as a jump start for that. But if not, you always look back on your spending from last year, pulling credit card statements from the months of October, November, December. What were specific? It's just, it's better than starting with zero, right? To try to look back on what was spent last year. Uh, and then always including you create your categories. That's step two. And I like to keep this simple food, travel, gifts, and decor. And sometimes in decor I include the crafts I like to do with my kids or, you know, some of those things that are really fun that they look forward to. But this way, I have a total gift budget. So I'm not worried about how much each gift costs as long as the total comes out to be under, you know, or at budget. I think that's helpful uh for people. And then tracking your spending and sticking to your budget is sort of the next step once you've got that all set, right? And that's easier said than done. Uh, but I there are a couple of a couple of tips I like that have worked for me well. One would be a dedicated card or an account you're using to specifically draw out money for your holiday purchases. It's kind of like you know exactly where you're spending and how much you're spending all in one place. So I I do that. That's kind of helpful for me. It might be a helpful for for folks listening. Uh, I also like to use my my spouse and I share a note on our phones. So we both have access to it and we and we write down, we, we list our ideas. Um, I saw this here, let's talk about it together. So we engage in a form of togetherness in our planning that brings uh, you know, some some conversation and communication to the front when we share that that note on our phones. And that helps us so we both know what's going on, at least somewhat together. That's also, you know, it's more than just one person is spending on a holiday budget. So I think you gotta do what it takes to come together on some of those purchases too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I like that, um, Amanda, a lot because sometimes it's a and I don't know, this is stereotypes, you know, probably, but uh it feels like it's it's often many women who are, okay, I'm in charge, I'm gonna buy, you know, bye bye, buy, buy all this. And and sometimes, you know, with the Christmas morning, you know, dad that wakes up doesn't have any clue what anyone's getting type of a thing. Uh it's probably overdone. But I love the idea with that note that you're saying, we have this note, shared note. We can go back and forth because maybe I'm at work, but I see the something, or she says, and we can put it in there and kind of commute uh communicate that way. So ah, that's brilliant. I had not uh thought of that. Love that one. Uh okay, Amanda. Once someone has a budget then in place, the challenge becomes tracking all the little costs that sneak up. And they just they just do, whether it's it's travel, it's stocking stuffers, uh, I mean wrapping paper, food, activities. You know, the one neighbor who brought us something and we we didn't prep for them. Now we gotta get something to give to that neighbor. Like there's all this, you know what I'm saying? We have that every year. It there's just always these little things that maybe weren't in the plan that were kind of unplanned. Do you have tools or systems that you recommend for staying on on top of it all?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes. I there are a couple of um, and I guess for the people, there's you can do it either way. The note on your phone is a continued tip there. If you're just wanting to have it somewhere where both people both can see it, continue that certainly still applies. I do like there's some specific spending apps that are for holiday spending or gifting in particular, and it keeps a record of what you've given people. And so Gifter, Gifter, G-I-F-T-S-T-E-R, Gift Stor is a popular app for organizing and sharing um wish lists. Even so if you have older kiddos that would use it too and share lists with you, like that's often very helpful. Um, it offers wish lists that are, and and there's often um, there's even a there's a reserve feature so that duplicate gifts aren't purchased if you're sharing this amongst your family. But it's a free app without ads, and I think it's a great first like just place to lean in to sort of start to organize and track things. Gift Log is also a free-to-download mobile app that helps you track gifts that you receive and give for all occasions, not just the holidays. But it lets you, it lets you log things and keep track. I really like this because I don't, I often don't remember. I need to keep record from year to year. That is helpful for me. Uh, Santa's bag is another really fun one. It's just for the holidays, for the Christmas holidays in particular, but you can mark gifts as purchased, wrapped, mailed, like it's very customizable. And then um the Christmas list app, this one costs$3. And I think it's worth the$3. It lets you set a budget per person. It lets you password protect the app, which we love so that no kiddos could accidentally get in and see anything. There's no ads. You can add photos of things, you can remind yourself where you've put. Have you ever hidden a gift and then forgot about it? Or did there's a place to I can remember where I've put it. So these are some of the areas where I think you got to lean in when you're trying to track that. And then, of course, a good old-fashioned spreadsheet, I tell you what, you can Google a holiday spending spreadsheet and a bunch of free ones pop up. So you you make it your own. If if someone's on a computer more often and they're more comfortable on a spreadsheet than an app, or they want to see things on a larger screen, uh, just Google it and you'll see so many um available. You could probably also have AI help you generate one that's exactly how you want it to be. So no matter what method you choose, the key is so fancy. Yeah, make it easy for you, right? Something you will actually use and stick to is the most important thing. Love it.

SPEAKER_05:

Wow. Hmm, that's so interesting. I'm just thinking, I'm sorry, I'm kind of thinking about um, you know, Santa's coming to our house and I can't remember whether it's 14 or 16 kids, and I wanted to involve their parents. I need these elves to help us, right? Help us choose a gift. I don't mind paying for it, but I'd like them to choose it as the parent elves. Is there a way to do that?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I there's a and I think sometimes the involving the group is best for everyone. Um, we often create wish lists on Amazon and share those out, and that's simple, right? Everyone could get in and easily see that, and no one has to have a particular app. So to that point, Liz, that that's really helpful when you you don't have to purchase an item from Amazon, but you can set up a wish list on Amazon and then share that out. And parents add to that and share it with you, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_05:

And those are that might be the easiest way to do that, right? So an Amazon wish list. Thank you so much for that. I have never used that, so I'm gonna look into it. And so the other people are what they're they're putting their wish list on there, right? Like the parents would for their kids.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

But it happens to be on my account.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, that you can share, you can make one shareable and um editable, basically. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm doing it. This is all very new to me. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00:

We'll be right back after this brief message.

SPEAKER_02:

And we're back. Let's dive right in.

SPEAKER_05:

You know, everyone dreads those surprise, surprise holiday expenses, right? We all have them. Do you have strategies that we can use to plan ahead so these unexpected costs don't just derail us or our budget?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I think it's a great question and really timely. So we've talked about a few of them already as far as creating a plan and um using a separate account, a dedicated holiday account to keep spending visible and contained and labeling money for the purpose that it's for. Um, that helps avoid the I'll pay it off later trap, you know, that we can tend to get sucked into this time of year. Um tracking hidden holiday costs is really helpful. Those that, like you talked about, Dave, wrapping paper, postage, gifts for, you know, charitable donations or school or work parties, some of those things that come up. Um, shopping early and obviously getting a jumpstart on it so that impulse spending and last minute purchases don't get the better of us. Um, and I really like dive. I'm see, I'm the I love diving into the data from last year. I love looking at what I spent last year. Um, we probably overdid it a little bit last year because we were planning a trip. Um, we had a trip in January that we were going on as a family. So some of our gifts that were received that were given to our kiddos were in preparation for that trip, in addition to some of the things we we we got them. And it ended up being, as I look back, too a little too much. So I like looking back at that and having it really inform my decisions this year and and try not to just put be on autopilot. And and that really helps getting with, you know, getting intentionally spending and feeling joy out of out of spending rather than regret and shame.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, which we all tend to have sometimes. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, Amanda, you shared before about your favorite way to save for holiday spending throughout the year. Can you explain the revolving savings approach and how families can start using it now, even kind of looking ahead?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. So picture a revolving door, and people can go in and out of a revolving door at the same time, right? So you're visualizing that in your mind. Think of it now a savings account that uh is basically a revolving savings for the purpose of gifting. So I like to consider how much I'm gonna spend on the holidays, divide that by 12 months, or you could divide it by 26, however many paychecks. If you're getting paid twice a month, right? You could divide it by paychecks or monthly, whatever's most helpful for you. And you're gonna set aside, uh, you know, for the say, for the sake of ease, let's say I have$1,200 total, I divide that by 12. It's$100 a month that I'm going to put aside in a separate savings account that is going to be used for upcoming gifting and holiday expenses. And uh a great way for people to jumpstart this account is if you if you've got a holiday, if you've got a Christmas bonus coming, this is a great way to jumpstart that account or a tax return, certainly. Um, but but really sometimes we we put money in and then we're gonna take money out as we see an item on sale that we want to purchase. So it doesn't matter if that's if it's October, we've we should have a stash of cash ready to go by the time like October rolls around. And that can that's my that's my favorite way um to save for the holidays. It always I I always have a stash of cash ready to go to draw from. And it it just helps me purposefully use my money ever all year round, right? So that the holidays aren't breaking the bank.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Love it.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, so many wonderful rich resources, Amanda. Thank you for sharing them with us today. Where can listeners find out more about you and more of those helpful tips you offer?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, come on, come on over and join the fun at Utah Money Matters on Instagram, is where I'm most active, but we also share things on Facebook. And then the the blog, utahmoneymatters.org, is where you could link over to read and link to the free resources we have there, as well as our online, our money master online course, which goes into a lot of great detail about your money personality, actually, and my favorite budgeting philosophy, how to put that into practice and um tips for saving, paying off debt, managing credit, uh bonus modules about investing, homeownership, and insurance and all the all the things. So if you're looking for a personal finance 101, it's a great spot for that.

SPEAKER_05:

Utah Money Matters. Okay, great. And you can take a free personality test on there. Is that right?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Yeah. And the online course has a a code to link you over to take a money personality test. It's really quite fun and pretty eye-opening. Very fun.

SPEAKER_05:

And there's six, six different types, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, six different money personality types. And we're all we're usually we're we're a mix of all six. There are advantages and challenges in all six. So it's fun. The more you learn, the more you can lean into um your own money personality, draw on your strengths, curb your weaknesses. Uh, it's really fun, a great effort.

SPEAKER_05:

We're gonna add all that to our show notes, Amanda, so our listeners will have an easy time accessing that. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so many rich resources, uh, Amanda, that you've shared today. Hey, as we wrap up, I gotta ask, um, we we close with the takeaway of the day, as you know. So let me ask you, Amanda, what's the one holiday tip or money, you know, mindset shift or takeaway you'd love our listeners to remember from our discussion today?

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, one holiday tip, one mindset shift. Um I think we do a lot of comparing during the holidays, and we even not not purposely sometimes, right? There's a lot of comparing with other family members, neighbors, friends, what we see on social media certainly plays a part in that. And so I think uh the what I have what I need, and what I have is enough. Um, that mantra has helped me more than once refocus on, you know, I made a plan and I purposely, intentionally purchased things that, you know, for for people that I feel will will bring them joy. And I I have what I need, what I have is enough. And I just don't need to get sucked into um comparing uh what others are doing, what I'm not doing. Uh and that helps me do it. That mantra, I have what I need, what I have is enough is probably what guides my, what guides my overall efforts when I'm spending for holiday gifting in particular.

SPEAKER_01:

Love you. Love, love, love that that mantra. Uh Liz, what about you? What's your takeaway of the day with Mena?

SPEAKER_05:

I already have that mantra up on my computer. I just really love that for all year long. I think that is just exceptional. And thank you for the shared list that you can put on Amazon. I love your idea that involve the group. I think there's just such wisdom to that. So thank you for that added um suggestion and encouragement to involve the parents. I appreciate that. And Dave, what about you? What's your favorite takeaway from our interview today with Amanda Christensen?

SPEAKER_01:

There's so many helpful tips, Amanda. I think the word that comes to my mind is intentionality, right? Doing these intentionally creating a system or an app or finding something that works for you. And I think something that works for you, it's gonna look different for every couple. I think the easy way is to is to not worry about it, just keep swiping the credit card, right? And we'll figure it out in January. Um, but that can create again this this tension and and ah these feelings that you They have later. So intentionally find us and you know talk to each other create whether it's a shared note or an app or a spreadsheet or whatever it is. It takes it takes some work and some effort. But it will be it'll be worth it. It'll be worth it for your own mental health, your financial health, your relationship health if you will intentionally um go do something uh about it intentionally uh with the apps or whatever it is. So that's that's my takeaway, uh Liz. This has been very helpful. All kinds of great tips today, Amanda.

SPEAKER_04:

Thanks for having me. I I it's always great to be here with you too. Pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we should. Likewise.

SPEAKER_05:

And it's so timely as we go into the holidays, especially Christmas.

SPEAKER_01:

Very, very timely. All right, that does it for us, our friends. Thanks again, Amanda Christensen, for coming on. We'll be sure to share all those resources, and we'll see you next time on another episode of the Stronger Marriage Connection Podcast.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, thank you. And happy holidays, Amanda, and everyone. And do remember it's the small things that create a stronger marriage connection. See you soon.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for joining us today. Hey, do us a favor and take a second to subscribe to our podcast and the Utah Marriage Commission YouTube channel at Utah Marriage Commission, where you can watch this and every episode of the show. Be sure to smash the like button, leave a comment, and share this episode with a friend. You can also follow and interact with us on Instagram at StrongerMarriageWife and Facebook at Stronger Marriage. So be sure to share with us which topics you loved or which guests we should have on the show next. If you want even more resources to improve your marriage or relationship connection, visit strongermarriage.org where you'll find free workshops, e-courses, in-depth webinars, relationship surveys, and more. Each episode of Stronger Marriage Connection is hosted and sponsored by the Utah Marriage Commission at Utah State University. And finally, a big thanks to our producer, Rex Polanis, and the team at Utah State University, and you, our audience. You make this show possible. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of the Utah Marriage Commission.