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Show Notes:

I'm pumped to talk about a Christmas budget and Christmas gifts today. Guys, this can get so outta hand so fast, and also it can have such a negative connotation to it. Just making a Christmas budget feels like it's stifles all the Christmas cheer. But I'm here to say it doesn't. It doesn't. Making a Christmas budget actually brings me a lot of joy because it helps me to stay organized and focused on what I really, really want to be spending my money on.

And it helps me not get so carried away that in January I look back and have a lot of regret. I don't. When I make a Christmas budget, I don't. And so today we're gonna talk all about how to make a simple and effective Christmas budget for you to follow, as well as how to create a gift tracking document so that you can keep track of everything really well this Christmas.

For the full episode, hit play above or read through below.

Okay, I get that sometimes it's scary to make a budget for Christmas and that it feels like you're not gonna have as much fun because you have to watch what you're spending.

But I just wanna encourage you, you know what? Sometimes we have to do things that aren't fun, but we have to do them because we're an adult and it's the way to be a healthy adult and manage our money well. So it might feel that way at first, but I'm here to say it actually gives you a sense of control and authority over your Christmas spending.

And let me also just say that it is okay to budget money to spend a Christmas time that is part of the fun of it. It's a time to be a little more extravagant and to spend on gifts and other activities or experiences that you normally wouldn't. So let's just hold our heads high and know that creating a Christmas budget is actually very empowering and not stifling like you might think.

And I'm gonna walk you through the very simple, this is a simple approach to it and a very simple episode. I don't like for things to get too complicated at Christmas time. It's already more, it's already complicated enough. But what I want to do is just outline how I do a very simple numbers doc on my computer that I share with my husband that we keep track of every single gift that we buy and we keep track of all our spending so that we know we're not going totally out of bounds during Christmas time and we know what is important to us to spend on.

So here's my process, okay, you can do this. Every year I create a budget. I copy and paste, actually, I make a copy of the budget last year and I recreate it for this year. And I share it with my husband. And we budget kind of what we wanna spend on each child and each family member that we're responsible for getting gifts for, and we make a budget for our decorations.

Okay? So we have two categories. Number one is gifts. The gifts that we're gonna buy for people. And number two is decorations. Because we fall squarely in the camp of buying a real Christmas tree every year. We do not believe in fake Christmas trees. Well, I should say we have a fake one in Will's office, but for our main living room Christmas tree, we are team real Christmas tree. So that, you know, you got a budget for the Christmas tree, you got a budget for the wreaths, you got a budget for the garland. I have been such a sucker for this beautiful garland that you can get at like Home Depot. And I just wrap it around my banister and oh, it's so beautiful.

Okay, that is a total tangent. Going back to the budget. So there's two categories and that's it. It's pretty simple. It's gifts and it's decorations. Every year, this is what I do. I'm just gonna, you can probably like figure out everything else from this point on. I could end the episode right now and you'd be like, great Nancy, thanks I've, I've got this from here on out. And all you do is you both fill in people's names and like what you spend and the gifts that you buy as you get them. But I'm just gonna spell it out for you anyway, just so you have a clear picture of what I do.

So on the left hand side,I have everybody's names and all the decoration pieces in two different like columns. And then I have in the middle is a column of what the gift is. Like I type out the name of the gift, what I actually buy, and then on the right hand side there's two money columns. Okay? One money column is like what I budgeted for that person.

So let's say it's like $50. Well, there's also another budget column right next to it is, which is what I actually spent on that person. So I'm not gonna spend exactly $50 to the penny on every single person. I might be under for a few people. I might be over for a few people, but that's my target. Okay? So we have the target in one column and then we have the actual spent in another.

So again, visualize this with me. The name of the person, the actual gift that we bought them, written out, the actual dollar amount that we spent on that gift. And then at the very end is like the budgeted amount for that person. So in the beginning, before you go shopping, you're only gonna have the very first column of the names and the very last column of like the budgeted amount.

And as you shop, you fill out those two middle columns, okay? Tracking with me. Same for the decoration down below, except that I don't really type in like what we actually bought because a Christmas tree's a Christmas tree, so like a Christmas tree on the left hand side of the column. And then it's what we actually spend and then what we budgeted at the very end.

Okay, listen, here's the thing. If you are part of my Patreon community (patreon.com/workandplay), you will receive a copy of my exact budget that you can just take and copy, make a copy for yourself in Google Docs or Google Numbers or whatever. Google Sheets. That's on Google Sheets and you can make it yourself. So if you wanna join Patreon, you can get the companion PDF guide to all these holiday episodes as well as a link to this budget.

Now then after you go shopping for everybody, you total it up at the end and you see what you spent after you buy all the Christmas decorations, you total it up, you see what you spent. And there you have your Christmas budget, the budget that you planned for, and then the actual budget. And you can see whether or not you stayed on track and make any adjustments for the following year.

That's it. It's pretty simple. It's not super fancy, but it helps. And I think the most valuable part of this, honestly, is that Will and I both have access to this budget and we can both see very quickly the gifts that we have bought for our kids and what we spent on them already.

And that's where our weak spot is. We will spend more on our kids than we really intend to because we love them and we love Christmas. So we just see stuff and we wanna buy it for them. But that's where it'll get you, that's where you'll get kind of outta control. So this helps us rate it in and stay on task.

Now let's talk about gifts a little bit. There are a lot of different ways that you can go about giving gifts. You've, you've heard it, you can go something, they want something, they need something to wear, something to read. We, we try to do that and stick within that framework, but we don't stick to it perfectly. It's not like our kids just get those four gifts. They get a few more as well.

You can do wrapped or unwrapped presents from Santa. You can do Santa, you can not do Santa, you, you can do, I don't know, stockings. Everybody does stockings, right? Anyway, you can do Christmas gifts however you want. That is totally up to you. There is grace for however you want to do that.

My encouragement as you're listening to this episode is to think it through and don't be spontaneous or last minute about it. A more meaningful gift and a more meaningful Christmas comes from one that has had thoughtful planning. And dare I say, a budget involved. Because you know what you're wanting to spend your money on.

And I just wanna remind you that simple Christmases are beautiful. It does not have to be extravagant. You do not have to shell out so many hundreds and thousands of dollars to make Christmas amazing. It can be so simple. And think about your favorite Christmas memories as a kid. It, yeah, you might remember a couple of gifts, but what do you really remember about Christmas as a kid? You remember the smells and baking and the traditions that you got to do.

So just think through that. Like my encouragement to you today is as you're making this budget, let it be a tool for you to be incredibly intentional with what you're buying for your children. And that your values match up with what you're spending and that you're creating a Christmas that reflects your values of contentment and joy and simplicity. And that is not totally ravaged by the materialism of this world that is literally consuming us at every which way we look saying buy this, do this. It can be so simple and so beautiful, and a budget really helps guide that and put in those boundaries so that that can truly happen.

So just think about that. Go back to the basics. You know, we want our focus as a family to remain on Jesus. We want our focus to be our time spent together. We don't want it to get outta control. One thing we're gonna do this year is give the grandparents some guidelines or like a wishlist, like a gift list for the kids and kind of some do's and don'ts as it regards to the toys that they already have plenty of and the toys or like things that they need.

So we always send out like a Christmas list ahead of time. And then like I said, we always track what we buy in that shared document so we don't overbuy or overspend. So go back to those questions. What are the things this Christmas that are gonna bring you the most joy? What are the things that will foster contentment in your hearts and in the lives of your kids?

Let it be as extravagant as you want, but hold onto the values that you're, that you treasure the most at Christmas time. And be intentional about teaching those things to your children as well.

One of the things we love to plan into our schedules for worship as a family is advent blocks. Advent blocks are a simple, profound way to teach your children about the season of Advent and what the real meaning of Christmas is all about. There are 27 of these little wooden blocks about the size of small blocks that you'd play with with your kids. You first set out blocks one through 25, and then there's the star block and then Earth block. Okay? And so you put the earth block at the very top of number 25, and the star block.

You put at the top of number one, and each day you read a story in their devotional that it comes with. And you turn the number block to reveal an image that corresponds with that day's story. Then you move the star block one step closer to the earth block. God is coming to earth to stay on Christmas Eve. Turn the blocks one more time to reveal a special message, which is Emmanuel God with us.

So we always read the devotional companion at dinnertime, and the kids take turns turning each wooden block each night with the stories. And then on Christmas Eve, me and Will are the ones that turn all the blocks to reveal Emmanuel God with us. And it's just really sweet and beautiful and a great practical, tactile way for our kids to experience the season of Advent.

The company that makes these is called Good Kind. And if you go to goodkind.shop and use the code WORKANDPLAY when you check out, you'll get 15% off your order if you place the order in November, head to the link in the show notes or head to Good Kind shop and use work and play when you check out.

So incorporate things that are simple and beautiful. Ask yourself those questions. What brings you the most joy? What will foster contentment and create a Christmas that you love within the boundaries and beauty of a budget that serves your family well?

Thanks for listening to episode 215 of Work and Play with Nancy Ray. You can find all of these links in the show notes at nancyray.com/podcast/215. You can find me @nancyray on Instagram, or you can go to nancyray.com and find me there as well.

Dave Ramsey said,