Dearest readers, hope you are doing well and slowly getting into a festive mood (yes, I know it's early but hey). I enjoy the holiday season and am happy for everyone else who does too- "denominationally" or not. What else is there to do with holiday music and decorations everywhere, workplace and private parties, gift giving and NYE except to get jolly with it! However, most of us are starting to realize one major thing; year after year, this jolly disposition during the holiday season makes us go broke and fat! This, dearest readers, is something I decided to identify as a problem and address in a very special way. I thought quite a bit about this issue, and found there are a few things all of us can do differently to avoid going fat and broke this holiday season, but without being a total party pooper everywhere we go.
First, it's the holiday shopping and gift giving that needs a paradigm shift. TV and YouTube ads are the worst here, year after year. Unless you're extremely rich, they make no sense! For example, last year here in Canada, the Source had a commercial where a soccer mom was shopping for the family's holiday gifts- a laptop for one kid, iPad for another, Beats headphones, a DSLR (from what I remember) and so on. Are they insane?! Yes, it looks like they're showing off what they have in store but that's not really the case, we know what they have! More so, they're trying to get us to think that what looks like $3000+ of holiday shopping is totally fine. Here, slide that credit card, make your family happy, you'll pay it off (yeah right). Then, there are crazy expensive gifts for friends, even casual friends, Secret Santa at work and so on... That's all way too much and one of the most financially detrimental ways to show people you care about them. The simple advice here is to stop doing it. What completes the paradigm shift is answering how to stop. I think the best thing to do is to set a budget, then look for gifts instead of making a list of gifts, and then going out to buy them regardless of the total cost! Amazing, no?
Second, it's the constant overeating and (for some people) drinking at parties and holiday dinners. There's all this stuff on the table, pitchers of beer keep being brought to the table, there's wine and champagne, liberal consumption of eggnog and a myriad of different desserts, and by the end of it you look in the mirror, panic, calm down, sigh and make a New Year's resolution to work out and lose the gut before spring or summer time (depending on how bad the situation is haha). As most late night TV show hosts will jokingly tell you, those resolutions never work out. So then, the beginning of the paradigm shift here is to realize that if the resolution to lose all that holiday weight doesn't work, then the only way to do it is to prevent it almost completely from happening in the first place! What completes the paradigm shift, however, is figuring out the way to make it work without making it overtly obvious to other people because no one likes to see you being careful when they're not. To me, the best way to do so is to save unlimited partying for NYE. For all other holiday parties and dinners, limiting drinking to two drinks (like in Millionaire Matchmaker lol) is an excellent way to not lose control while still being festive enough. As for food, well, just because there's tons of food on the table, it doesn't mean it's your task to polish all of it off! Leave most of it to those who are ok with gaining tons of weight and then making fake New Year's resolutions haha.
So there we have it, dearest readers- two paradigm shifts to prevent everyone willing to try them from going broke and fat this holiday season. You see, the title wasn't clickbait after all ;)
First, it's the holiday shopping and gift giving that needs a paradigm shift. TV and YouTube ads are the worst here, year after year. Unless you're extremely rich, they make no sense! For example, last year here in Canada, the Source had a commercial where a soccer mom was shopping for the family's holiday gifts- a laptop for one kid, iPad for another, Beats headphones, a DSLR (from what I remember) and so on. Are they insane?! Yes, it looks like they're showing off what they have in store but that's not really the case, we know what they have! More so, they're trying to get us to think that what looks like $3000+ of holiday shopping is totally fine. Here, slide that credit card, make your family happy, you'll pay it off (yeah right). Then, there are crazy expensive gifts for friends, even casual friends, Secret Santa at work and so on... That's all way too much and one of the most financially detrimental ways to show people you care about them. The simple advice here is to stop doing it. What completes the paradigm shift is answering how to stop. I think the best thing to do is to set a budget, then look for gifts instead of making a list of gifts, and then going out to buy them regardless of the total cost! Amazing, no?
Second, it's the constant overeating and (for some people) drinking at parties and holiday dinners. There's all this stuff on the table, pitchers of beer keep being brought to the table, there's wine and champagne, liberal consumption of eggnog and a myriad of different desserts, and by the end of it you look in the mirror, panic, calm down, sigh and make a New Year's resolution to work out and lose the gut before spring or summer time (depending on how bad the situation is haha). As most late night TV show hosts will jokingly tell you, those resolutions never work out. So then, the beginning of the paradigm shift here is to realize that if the resolution to lose all that holiday weight doesn't work, then the only way to do it is to prevent it almost completely from happening in the first place! What completes the paradigm shift, however, is figuring out the way to make it work without making it overtly obvious to other people because no one likes to see you being careful when they're not. To me, the best way to do so is to save unlimited partying for NYE. For all other holiday parties and dinners, limiting drinking to two drinks (like in Millionaire Matchmaker lol) is an excellent way to not lose control while still being festive enough. As for food, well, just because there's tons of food on the table, it doesn't mean it's your task to polish all of it off! Leave most of it to those who are ok with gaining tons of weight and then making fake New Year's resolutions haha.
So there we have it, dearest readers- two paradigm shifts to prevent everyone willing to try them from going broke and fat this holiday season. You see, the title wasn't clickbait after all ;)