This is the first in a three-part series called #MerryMoney, about the different strategies I’m using to keep my holiday spending under control. They aren’t rocket science, and honestly, if you’re a spending-and-saving guru, they might seem totally basic! But if you’re looking for ways to get through the season without having to tap into your TFSA to do it, you’re in the right place.
Listen.
Christmas is a time for family, and the simultaneous best and sometimes-most-infuriating part of families is that they’re made up of individuals, all of whom will probably have a slightly different take on what gift-giving at the holidays should look like.
Unless you’ve had six years to work up to a no-spend holiday, a la Our Next Life, you’re probably going to be spending some money this Christmas / Hannukah / whatever.
But just like any other time of the year, I’m a big fan of being upfront about your budget. Now, maybe Nanna doesn’t want to hear about your savings rate or your astronomical cell phone bill, and I bet your cousin Sally couldn’t care less either. That doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to introduce the idea of spending less that they wouldn’t want to hear about.
Think less
“I have no money please help”
and more
“Here’s a really fun way we can both save some money this holiday season.”
Here’s a framework I’ve uh… totally never used to get my way with family members and friends.
Not ever.
And bonus: it totally un-awkwards the entire conversation, because if you follow it? You aren’t even talking about your budget in the first place.
Step One: Customize Your Message
Your first step in having a conversation that will save your holiday budget is to make it more about them and less about you. To do that, you need to know what else they would like, other than an expensive gift.
Luckily, you probably know every single person on your potential-gift list really well. Why’s that lucky? Well, you’re in the know about what this person values beyond just a pile of material goods.
If it’s older family members – think parents and grandparents – time with you is probably high up on their list! If it’s your friends, I bet you can think of at least one low-cost-and-awesome activity you like to do together.
Plus, you can pitch it as a win-win: if you’re suggesting an alternate gift plan, you can make it a two-sided affair.
For example, instead of sending long-distance friends a present in the mail, maybe you suggest that the two of you schedule a Skype date to try the same bottle of wine and catch up instead. You just saved SO much on postage, and so did they! (Caveat: if they’re a wine snob this is not your best option.)
Step Two: Set Yourself Up to Win
So you’ve got this killer idea of how you and your friend / loved one / Mom / human you know can save money and celebrate the holidays together at the same time. Before you pitch them on it, there’s a tiny bit of really easy planning you should do.
Ask yourself two things:
- How does this person like to connect with you? Are you two more iMessages and emojis, or face-to-face chats? Maybe your grandmother likes to FaceTime with you as much as mine does. Whatever the answer is, that’s the method you should use to pitch your idea.
- What’s the best timing for them? This includes both what times and days are low-stress for them, and when they tend to do their holiday shopping.
For the time-and-day question, here’s an example. My work days are usually super stressful around this time of year, so sending me a text asking if we can try something new for the holidays this year? Not the best strategy, especially because you’ll probably be met with radio silence for 8 hours. That’s awkward.
Setting up a quick Skype chat in the evening on a Tuesday, however? A totally different story.
As for when they like to do their shopping, if they’re a super-early-bird shopper, you might be too late to suggest a mutually beneficial arrangement this year. Your gift is probably sitting in their closet already. That doesn’t mean you can’t get creative and pitch something else! It’s just something to consider before you initiate the chat.
If they’re no early bird? You’re all set!
Step Three: Deliver a Can’t-Miss Pitch
If you’ve got the first two steps down, this is the easy part. You’re walking in to this absolutely-not-awkward conversation armed with…
- a killer idea for a budget-friendly holiday celebration you know they’ll love, and
- a perfectly timed chat that works for them, in the method they like to connect with you.
At this point, you really can’t lose, and it’s time to just turn on the charm and have the conversation. If you’re really still stuck, here are a few ideas to kickstart your creative juices.
- If it’s your significant other, why not suggest gifting each other an experience instead of things this year? I may or may not have suggested my boyfriend and I go get certified on the library’s laser cutter as a date night. It’s not technically our Christmas plan, but man oh man are we excited for it! (Plus, it’s free.)
- If it’s your grandmother, why not suggest spending an afternoon having her teach you how to make those amazing cinnamon rolls she makes every year? You bring the ingredients, she brings the mad baking skills.
- If it’s your best friend, why not suggest a lunch date at that new restaurant you’ve both been hearing so much about – or, if they’re long distance, a Skype date where you both try out a new bottle of wine in your respective locations?
- If it’s your extended family, try floating the idea of a Secret Santa for the adults. It might be too late to implement this year, but you know when everyone’s really receptive to new ideas? After Grandpa’s liberally spiked egg nog on Christmas Eve, or Grandma’s special recipe* gin and tonics.
*The recipe is more gin.
So that’s my basic framework for having the awkward holiday money chat with your friends and family. Trust me when I say that if you follow it – as I have to stellar effect, my Christmas budget is so manageable – it’s not awkward at all, especially because your budget never even has to come up.
And in the meantime, your January bank accounts will thank you.
Have you had successful conversations with friends or family about spending less around the holidays? I’d love to hear how they went, and what strategies worked for you! And PS. If you’re a blogger and you want to share any #MerryMoney advice, send your posts my way here or on Twitter and I’ll link them at the start of next week’s posts!
These are all great suggestions! Back in the days we used to give gifts to one another; with 5-10 people to give a gift to in our family there were a lot of mugs and t-shirts (usually the wrong size) passed around. Then one day I started to have very non-chalant, individualized conversations with each where I would extol the wastefulness of it all, and how Christmas is all about spending time together and nothing more; I kept mentioning that, if we were to exchange gifts at all, it should be more of a Secret Santa approach so each individual would get something valuable and meaningful. Lo and behold, gift exchanges no longer take place and instead we get together, laugh, love, and save.
That’s awesome! I love that you basically ninja’d it with the individual casual conversations, haha. That’s another fantastic benefit that I didn’t even think of for pitching a Secret Santa – everyone gets something they actually want, and *still* saves money! That’s brilliant. Thank you for adding that to the conversation!
🙂
This is a great guide. We lucked out this year because my dad is retiring and said “We’re all going to Hawaii” – at which point, we all decided that (other than the hula skirts and hawaiian shirts my parents will help Santa get the kids and the meaningful book my sister and I put together for our parents) no gifts will be exchanged. I’m hoping my kids will get that less presents=awesome experiences and we can build on that for next year. Oh, and since Mr. T and I are going on an elaborate 10th anniversary UK adventure next summer, no gifts have been exchanged for us all year – which will continue. 🙂
Yes, yes, yes to this! My mom did similar things with me when I was a bit older, and I loved it – I remember those Christmases so well, and we had such a good time together. One year I even got a new suitcase the night before we left, and that was my only “present” – plus, all of the beaches in the middle of winter, haha. (I still have that suitcase! It’s seen me through trips to Australia and Europe since.)
Getting the “less presents but awesome experiences” concept introduced early is so valuable! It’s led me to suggest things like “This year, instead of buying each other gifts, let’s split the expense of getting a dog – and then we get to have a dog!” Clearly, this has worked out in my favour, haha.
#MerryMoney – I love it! I will be sending a post over your way to fit this theme! 🙂
This guide = amazing. Quite honestly, a lot of personal finance related tasks I’ve taken on have been best executed through condensed, how-to guides like this (have you read Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich book)? The idea of sharing a bottle of wine via Skype with one of your best friends is amazing. It’s low cost, intimate and definitely is much more meaningful to me than exchanging an item! Luckily, 2 years ago my fiancé & I were able to suggest AND execute a Secret Santa gift exchange with both sides of the family. Quite honestly…I cannot remember how we successfully managed to do it, everyone seemed to be on board! It was more just, get into a comfortable setting – post dinner time – after maybe a few drinks where everyone’s feeling warm & fuzzy – and voila! Everyone was on board to try. 🙂 By the way, that’s SO cool! Getting certified to use the laser cutter at the library?! I need to check if that’s an option for us here too. The library is one of our favorite date places!
Right?! The library has all of these layers of awesome that I’m so glad I’m starting to discover! I blew someone’s mind the other day telling them they could rent ebooks from the library from the comfort of their home. It’s kind of fun exposing people to it 🙂 and also, I LOVE Ramit’s stuff! I bought his book after reading his blog for a while and it totally exceeded my expectations.
I can’t wait to read your #MerryMoney post! It sounds like you guys are basically Secret Santa magicians, and it also sounds like an amazing tradition that’s led to some wonderful times with family. It’s great how you phrased it as “everyone was on board to try” too – pitching it as a trial run, instead of a forever commitment, is a wonderful way to get people to keep an open mind for a year!
We stopped gifts altogether, but it was hard. At first we suggested it to some people, and they either agreed very grudgingly, or they refused point blank to stop gifts.
When my dad, for whom this part of Christmas was especially important, died, we just told everyone there would be no more gifts from us, and we would not expect any in return either. We didn`t suggest nor negotiate, we just told people that this was what it was going to be. Everybody accepted this, in a surprising amount of cases even gratefully. They said they had been wanting to stop gifts for years and just didn`t have the courage. We now do kids only in our family, and this feels totally right.
I’m so sorry to hear about your dad, Bianca – losing family is rough.
We’ve got a close-to-kids-only arrangement going right now, with a few exceptions, including my grandmother. She’s also really into the gift-giving aspect of the holidays, so we always exchange gifts, but for a big chunk of us we’re happy to just exchange small things if anything at all. I’m going to write about my favourite easy, budget-friendly gift next week that I like to give to the adults in the family!
Thanks for the shout-out! If the comments on our post on how we got to our no-spend Christmas are any guide, it seems that lots of people don’t actually want to receive things. Some love giving gifts more than getting stuff, and some just don’t want to do the whole charade. So you might actually be doing your loved ones a favor by being the one to bring it up!
I so agree! Anytime I’ve gently opted out or offered a cheaper alternative – holiday or otherwise – it’s always been met with gratitude and usually a confession and a frank conversation about what each person feels comfortable with. That’s a win in my books!
Like Bianca, we went cold turkey and said “no more gifts.” To say that it wasn’t pretty would be an understatement. There was way too much “expectation” in the gift-getting that it bordered on greedy. Ick.
Oh serious ick! I made a face an everything, I’m so sorry that was your experience. I hope that things have settled a bit! And hey, at least now you have the “we live in a tiny house, please don’t buy us stuff or we’ll drown!” angle to go on!
So many great, creative ideas for affordable ways to show your loved ones how much they mean over the holiday period, which is what it’s really supposed to be all about right? For the last few years we’ve had other financial commitments that meant little left over for gift giving. When we’ve mentioned to our families that they won’t be getting a lot for Christmas I think they’re actually a bit relieved – they’re off the hook too!
Exactly! There have been very few times – actually, literally only one time – when owning up to what my budget will permit for an occasion or an event has been met with anything other than total support and some relief on the other person’s part! That’s why I’m such a proponent of being more open than most about money. It gives people permission to do the same, and you usually realize that no one else has it all handled perfectly or figured out either 🙂
This is amazing. Making it about them is such a great tactic because it helps them understand where you’re coming from, but even beyond that, it truly WILL help them to save money as well.
I’ve got to admit, I’m known in my family as being pretty frugal, so for the most part, I don’t even need to have these conversations 😉 BUT I am known to splurge on gifts (maybe my money habits are just weird/confusing in general?! hah) I bought my partner tickets to Disneyland & the Disney Resort for her birthday (she’s a HUGE fan. I think it has something to do with being British?? haha) and then also bought my mom a MacBook for her 51st 🙂 On both accounts, BEST MONEY EVER SPENT. So maybe I’m just a weird gift-giver in general, haha. Can’t wait for the second installment! After re-reading my comment, I’ve realized that my gift-giving habits are totally bizarre and I need all the help I can get 😉 hahah
Hahaha not at ALL bizarre, especially since I saw your tweet about love languages! Honestly, I should put a major disclaimer on this entire post and say that gifts are my lowest love language, and the same goes for my boyfriend, so that makes items really easy to skip at the holidays! (That said, the tickets to Disney sound like the BEST PRESENT EVER – can you tell quality time is my #1 love language? It’s almost tied with physical touch, so I’m basically a barnacle.)
Also, I feel like we should probably do a Valentine’s day themed link-up around how to balance occasions with love languages without breaking your budget – how fun would that be?! We just need to find people to rep words of affirmation, acts of service and physical touch!
Lastly, I’m dying laughing at how weird this comment is going to sound to anyone who’s never heard of the love languages.
A quote that has always resonated with me, when it comes to the interplay of gifts and experiences, is the following by Thoreau:
“Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.”
I think this can be extended to gifts in general. The only thing worth giving to anyone inundated with material possessions is a portion of your time, because there is absolutely nothing more valuable than that.
Oh that’s wonderful 🙂 I couldn’t agree more, quality time is the one thing I love to get over the holidays. My favourite “gifts” are ones that let me spend more time with the person giving it, whether or not it costs money!
Sooo basically every post of yours I read, I want to comment on. I’ll amalgamate my comments thus far here: YES YES YES!
The love languages thing is an AMAZING discussion to have with your partner! It was totally fascinating for a hundred different reasons. Also important to note though… gifts doesn’t have to be about actual fancy gifts – they could be something as simple as a post-it on your monitor saying “Love you!”. (I way prefer personal little thinking-of-yous over ostentatious, expensive gifts, and those little occasional notes make me smile all day!)
I’m definitely an acts of service and quality time girl. You’re offering to walk the dog when it’s my turn and -40C out? (Okay… even -10C out…) SWOON. Now THAT’s a Valentine’s day gift, baby!
Other relevant comments:
I suggested that we start doing a secret Santa in my family of five last year, with the caveat that each family member had to plan an experience for the whole family to do together over the course of the year. We LOVED it. As you said: experiences over gifts, and it was a great way to boost our quality time and reduce gift spend (although we spend on experiences, which I’m so okay with). Highlights from last year: Escape Manor, Absolute Comedy, and kayaking together!
Costco is AMAZING. As you’ve said, the membership is worth it on dog food alone, and it’s definitely a good quality food (not best, I’m okay with 4/5 stars – hahaha we did the same research!). Plus, their produce lasts forever and their meat is great quality. Huge bunch of bananas for like $1.70? Yes please!!!
Library. E-books. Angels singing. Best.Thing.EVER!
So basically I love your blog.
Krista I’m so sorry it took me so long to reply but this comment absolutely made my day! We are far overdue for a hang out, because I want to debrief on absolutely everything you wrote here, and I’m SO relieved that my “actual money friends” (like you!) don’t think I’m totally out to lunch on this, haha. Plus, I’m pretty sure your dog and my dog would have the best playdate EVER.
Great post. I find the best way to save money at the holidays is to create memories. This year my spouse (the chef) and I have raised the bar by hosting a viewing party and making custom home made pizzas with all the money we saved on discount movie tickets. For the full story, check out my blog.
http://reallifeofanmsw.com/2015/12/06/experiences-and-memories-aplenty/
Oh that is such an awesome idea! I love that so much for so many reasons.
1. I am also a big fan of the discount Costco movie tickets!
2. Homemade pizza is the best thing ever.
3. I’ve been meaning to catch up on the original Star Wars movies before the new one hits!
Lastly, it is so true – when I look back at my Mint account to some of the months in the past year, I literally couldn’t tell you a single thing I bought in the entire month, and yet somehow it shows that I spent THOUSANDS that month. Like, WHAT? On the other hand, I remember the money I spent on experiences like taking my dog to training classes. It’s so true – experiences are what we remember, not things!
Experiences are truly what matter. You should check out https://www.goldstar.com/ they have the best dscounts on local events. When it’s my turn to plan date night, girl’s night, or any other event I check them out first.
Great post as always Des!
I kind of hate the whole gift giving aspect of the holidays. I can’t really say this too much out loud because it makes me seem cheap and like a grinch to people around my social circle. As frugal as my wife and I are – Christmas is the one time that we kind of let go when it comes to spending. I think we’re on the way to spend about $800 on Christmas related expenses this year! Fortunately, we’re disciplined to save a little bit each month since last December to have this fund ready by October.
I always find gifting in general kind of funny. Unless the person you’re getting something for is tight on money or is a child, usually they can afford to buy what they want. So the goal of the gift is to get something someone likes/wants, but doesn’t like enough to buy for themselves! Of course it’s nice getting a gift, but I don’t need many more things than I already have.
Hahaha I TOTALLY get how you feel about gifting to adults! It’s been a gradual realization for me over the past few years since I graduated from being a pauper student to a Somewhat Fully Formed Adult. I started asking for things like socks for Christmas and kind of realized that wait, my Christmas list is just things I need to buy for myself anyways… This is different than when I was younger…
Luckily, most of the adults in my family are always focused on gifts for the kids, who *actually* can’t buy themselves things, haha, and my boyfriend and I are both on the same page about reasonable spending limits for each other! At the same time, I do have about $450 saved up and earmarked for Christmas spending, because there are a bunch of kids in the family, but it could definitely be worse if the family – led by my wonderfully frugal mom! – wasn’t so good about not gifting for adults, haha.
All that is to say that I don’t think your approach is Grinchy at all 🙂