Spending Guilt-Free: How to Enjoy Holidays Without a Budget

The holiday season is a time of joy and celebration, but it can also be a time of stress and financial strain. Many experts suggest creating a budget as the best way to manage your money during the holidays. However, there can be a different approach. Join me for this mini workshop, where I share how to prepare for the holiday season by understanding what’s truly important, and then reorganizing any money needed around those actual goals.

Before thinking about money, ask yourself why the holidays are important. 95% of purchasing decisions are made in the subconscious mind, which is all emotional. Without being grounded and focused on what’s truly important, you can easily get bombarded by ads and other people’s ideas. By gaining clarity on what’s important, you can avoid being influenced to overspend and instead enjoy the holiday season with loved ones.

Key Takeaways

• The holidays can be managed without a budget by understanding what’s truly important.
• 95% of purchasing decisions are made in the subconscious mind, which is all emotional.
• Gaining clarity on what’s important can help avoid overspending and enjoy the holiday season with loved ones.

Understanding the Importance of Holidays

Before starting to spend money during the holiday season, it is crucial to understand why the holidays are important to you. Because 95% of purchasing decisions are made in the subconscious mind, having clarity on why the holidays are important to you can help avoid being influenced by ads or other people’s ideas.

To gain clarity on what is most important to you during the holidays, make a list of the top 15 things that are important to you. This list should not be influenced by what others think or say, but rather reflect what matters to you personally. By stretching yourself out of your comfort zone and accessing your subconscious and unconscious mind, you may discover things that you were not even aware of that are really important.

After making a list of the top 15 things, the next step is to make a list of the people that you want to spend time with during the holiday season. By doing so, you can focus on spending time with the people that you care about the most and create meaningful memories with them.

Overall, understanding the importance of holidays can help you avoid overspending and stressing during the holiday season. By being clear on what matters to you and who you want to spend time with, you can create a holiday season that is truly meaningful and enjoyable.

The Christmas Story Example

A great example of this is the movie “A Christmas Story”. The movie is about an 8-year-old boy named Ralphie who wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Throughout the movie, Ralphie obsesses over getting the gun, but adults keep telling him he’ll shoot his eye out. Despite this, Ralphie eventually gets the gun for Christmas and promptly shoots himself in the eye with it.

If Ralphie were reflecting on what was important to him about Christmas as an adult, he probably wouldn’t say it was getting the Red Ryder BB gun. Instead, he would likely remember the memories he made with his family, such as going Christmas tree shopping or spending time with loved ones. Reducing the holidays to material possessions misses the bigger picture of why they are important.