Enjoying the Holidays without Spending a Dime #290

the background. Yeah, I feel like those things would be help us to get in the spirit a little bit. You have a go to Christmas album, map, I feel like the classic is like the Mariah Carey h Christmas album. That's my wife's favorite, is it really? But personally I'm a big fan of that five volume Sufi and Stephen's Christmas Album's in Hipster classic so good. It is really good. Yeah,

I agree. Do you have a favorite? I mean that's up there for me, the Soup jan and that's kind of that's kind of what I go to a lot during the holidays. But I like some old school classics as well, some of the old carols from the old hymns like Crosbie, those White Christmas soundtrack. Emily tells Alexa to play like a Christmas classic station and that always

works out. Well. Nice, Yeah, but yeah, we got a lot to get to on on how people can enjoy the holidays without spending too much money, especially as we get closer. We're less than three weeks away from Christmas now, which is it's it's hard to believe. But before we get to that, you wanted to talk about some homemade stuff you're doing in your kitchen. Yeah, So in the notes, I put a c V and do you even know what that stands for? Now? I'm assuming it's see your

up to no good? Because I didn't, because so I saw it all my calendar and I was like, what is strain a c V? What the heck is that? And it stands for Apple Cider Vinegar And it's something that Kate had stuck on the calendar. Back in the fall, we went to an orchard, you know, an apple orchard, and we picked a bunch of apples, came back with like multiple bags of apples from North Georgia, and we did a little baking one day and we had a bunch of course leftover. Uh, And I was getting ready

to toss him out. But Kate is incredibly resourceful, especially in the kitchen, and she looked up this recipe man to make your own apple cider vinegar, and literally all it takes our apple cores, sugar and water. So you take that and you you have to make sure you submerge it, right, so there can't be any apple like sticking up out of the water, otherwise it'll mold. But then the apples in the water it starts to ferments, and you make your own naturally fermented, you know, spontaneously

fermented apple cider vinegar. Uh. And I am so stoked to try it. We actually haven't tried any of it yet, So that brings up the question is it frugal or cheap to make your own fermented I don't even know what you would call it, like drink her food. I mean, you know, if people are into it, that's great. I think especially some people just love like your wife loves being in the kitchen, she loves cooking, she loves probably straining her own apple cider vinegar right like that, that's

the kind of apple chunks out of that. Yeah, she gets jazzed about the kind of stuff. Me. I'm the kind of guy that doesn't as much. So yeah, for me, it would probably be cheap. I'd be trying just to save money while doing something I hated. But for other people it's frugal because it's a labor of love. It's something that they enjoy and at the same time they could save money doing it. So yeah, I know. Some people make their own beverages, some people brew their own beer,

and and that's great. It's just not something I'm into. I prefer the store bought variety. I mean. My biggest concern though, is the fact that this is something that sat on top of our fridge in a jar like open air, you know, like she put a cloth over it to keep, you know, flies and stuff from getting in there. But otherwise, I think as Americans, we it's weird when we see something that sits out for that long and then we think, oh, are we gonna eat that?

Is that something that's gonna go inside my body? And so I'm a little bit nervous there. But it's no different I think than kombucha, Like that's not something that we've ever created ourselves or lambics. That are made in Belgium. I mean, well, I trust a lambic from Belgium, where there's been somebody that has done this for you know, millennia. It's been in this family where they've they brewed it.

It's still so interesting when you go and you tour one of those Belgian breweries that has what they call it's called a cool ship and they're huger the space of a room and they put the beer in there and it's open air, and there's spiders and there's every things like bugs whizzing in and out. But it's it's all a part of the TWA. Yeah, it's the most delicious tasting beer at the end of the day. And so I don't know, man, I think maybe you're gonna you're TWA of your a CV is gonna be delicious.

Maybe it'll be good. Yeah, So I'll post the recipe if folks were interested in given this a shot, because I was. I really was surprised at how few ingredients it took. But yeah, we'll make sure to put that in our show notes and all that. Note, Joel, that was a good transition as we were kind of talking about the beer a little bit. I did want to say you are the Martha Stewart of Personal Finance podcast hosts Oh you think so? I think so? Okay? Yeah,

does that make me the snoop Dogg? I don't know. Well. On that note, let's introduce our beer for this episode. We are enjoying an owl theory. This is by field Work Brewing Company. UH and Tim actually sent this one our away. We actually participated in a wellness webinar that his company hosted a couple of months ago, and obviously we talked about personal finance. But I'm looking forward to us both enjoying this bearer and we'll talk about it at the end of the episode. Sounds good, All right,

Let's get onto the subject at hand. We're talking about enjoying the holidays without spending a dime, and for many of us, Matt, I think, our default way of thinking in order to have a successful or fun holiday season, we feel like we need to spend lots of money. We've it's almost been ingrained in us culturally. That's how we do it in America. We buy our vinegar, and we also buy all of our gifts exactly, and we

buy more than we need. And it's like we feel like we need to have just a ton of presents under the tree or you know, wherever you put them in your house, and they can't be homemade like you said, or reasonably priced either. They kind of be expensive. They've got to be kind of showy. And lots of folks show that they love someone through over the top gift giving.

And it's even easy, I think this time of year for money conscious folks like our listeners, like you and I even at times to get caught up in all the spending that happens this time of year. So we wanted to create this episode. Um, we wanted to talk about enjoying the holidays without going overboard, because we think there are ways to do it, ways to get creative and at the same time, ways to really actually enjoy the holidays more if we're a little bit more money

conscious over the next few weeks. Yeah, I mean, and this is especially true, you know, considering the financial positions that a lot of Americans are in after this year, after uh, you know, stimulus checks back in the spring, where we're nice, those increased unemployment benefits certainly helped, but a lot of individuals are still without jobs, which means

their income has been severely disrupted. As of us recording this episode, initial unemployment claims are down to only seven nine thousand a week, which is actually good news, but that's still way more than where we were this time last year, when it was closer to only two hundred thousand a week. Yeah, to say that that's good news is scary, but it is. I guess you're right when you think about where things were, you know, just a

handful of months back. And aside from that, the impact that COVID has had on American incomes, on households and what they're able to bring in financially, there's also added health constraints this time a year, which means a lot of families are separate from each other, or at least

they're social distancing during their festivities this year. So with a lot of families not being together due to COVID, I think maybe there's an additional temptation to make up for the lack of proximity with increased amount of spending. It's kind of like, um, well, it says it can't be there in person, I'm gonna get you something super fancy, really nice. I wish I was there. I can't be there. So let's go ahead and double the Christmas budget this year,

thinking of you, here's a Tiffany bracelet. I don't know, I don't know how you're gonna roll with Emily, right, probably yeah, good for you, Joel. Right, But but this is totally gonna be a budget busting approach. If people do that, if they end up spending more because they can't be nearby their family, and that's not necessarily the best way to show somebody that you love them. And if you spend too much, obviously it's going to lead

to overspending and it could lead to a debt as well. Yeah, and if you're thinking that this isn't really a problem for most folks, you know, let alone you. Let's share some stats on holiday debts. My favorite that's on Hoiday. Let's do it man. According to Magnify Money, they every year they do a post holiday debt survey. Uh, they did one of last year's spending. According to that research, Americans racked up an average of one thousand dollars during

the holidays. And I think one of the more interesting things here is that of the consumers who took on that debt, the majority didn't plan on doing, so it just happened, right, And so the reason that we're talking about this today is because it's not good enough to just you know, hope for the best, to just cross our fingers. We need to change the way that we approach our holiday spending. And so that's our that's our

goal for this episode. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, Matt, you mentioned that people didn't have a plan, and that's it just kind of happened, right that that was their excuse at the end of the day when they were interviewed

for this survey. And we don't have a plan to not overspend, the likelihood that we will ever spend goes up dramatically, and then this debt has potential to even stick around for years, all in the name of of a joyous holiday season, of having a good time during the Christmas holidays, or whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year. And in that same debt survey, of folks were only making the minimum payment on the cards that

they racked up dent on. So not only is it going to take longer to pay for all that holiday spending, but you could end up paying massive amounts on interest on the holiday gifts and items you purchased. So it's not just the Tiffany bracelet, but it's a Tiffany bracelet with finance with uh interest rate attached to an ouch man. And yeah, also, we wanted to mention you know that we're referring specifically to Christmas some in the course of this episode. That's because it tends to be the biggest

consumption driver of the holidays this time of year. But when you look at the history of Christmas, it hasn't always been about scoring all the best deals and you know, getting presents to the max. Uh not, you know, not that gifts haven't been a regular part of the holidays for hundreds of years, but you know, the marketing hype has caused us to change much of our perceptions are

kids expectations about what the holiday should look like. So just remember that even though overspending in Christmas aren't massively intertwined these days, it hasn't always been that way and it doesn't have to be that way for you and you know, for your family. There are specific ways to change the trajectory of your holiday season, and we've got more on that right after this break. All right, we're back from the break. We're talking about enjoying the holidays

without spending a dime. I don't know why we didn't say penny or nickel, Matt, dime. You don't want to spend a dime? Exactly? Why did dime become the reference to piece of currency when you're talking about that, I don't know. Maybe because you can't buy anything these days with a penny or nickel. That's true, that's true. A dime maybe something. I mean, I know it costs more to produce a PENNI than a penny is actually worth. And I think it's almost to that point with a nickel. Yeah,

it's gotta be. There's gotta be. So let's get rid of the peny, let's get rid of the nickel. Let's only let's start with dimes, put chips in our risks and pay with everything. That way, you could that smart watching might be going in that direction, But we digress. Let's get back to the topic. We're we're talking on this episode about about not spending any money really when

it comes to having an enjoyable holidays. And I think you know it's it's our hope in this episode that we're talking about what will help you to shift and alter the way that you think about the holidays and holiday spending, and it all starts with how intentional you're being with your holiday spending and how you're approaching that with your friends and family. And man, I think too, you know, we we did say the title of this

episode enjoying the holidays without spending a dime. But it's not like you and I are not spending any money on gifts for the people that we love. Yeah, we're not taking it that literally. Yes, yeah, So we want you to know that too, that it's not like we're saying don't spend anything on gifts for anybody. That sounds a little gritchy. Actually, well that's the thing. We're not trying to be like ba humbugs here, right. We want

people to get into like the spirit. We want folks to have that holiday ch here, but we want them to achieve that with a change in the way that they're they're thinking about things, not by just throwing a bunch of money at it. Yeah yeah, I mean you and I were gonna spend money on our kids and on our spouses and on a few close family members and and then small gifts for some friends that we love to but we're gonna take more measured approach, and

that's really what what we're talking about here. Yeah, one thing to note too is if you're listening to this and you're thinking, Okay, this episode came a little bit too late. I've already purchased way too much stuff. Maybe I went notes on Black Friday. Maybe, so you know, maybe you've already gone overboard. If that's the case, you know, just remember that it's not too late to make some returns.

And that sounds maybe like almost anti patriotic to say, like, go ahead and return this Christmas gifts, but know that you're able to rethink how you can approach gift giving this year. It's the joy to give people. We you know, we love things that we know that they will love. Right, But if it means buying stuff that we can't afford, if it means financing those things, then it becomes a

financial burden and it's not worth it. You still got time to cut down on the costs of the holidays by taking things back that you will potentially be paying off for much of. Yeah, you don't want to be a negative part of Magnifying Money's survey next year, right that you're in way too much that after the holidays, don't become a statistic and it's just and it's just

not worth it, like it is fun. I understand the joy in the on of of spending money and buying somebody the perfect gift, but again, yeah, if it leaves you with months and months of regret afterwards, it's not worth that moment of joy. Uh. And And that there are ways to to give gifts without spending much money at all or any money. Gift giving is one of the major challenges of enjoying the holidays without spending a dime, right, Challenging yourself to give gifts they don't cost any money,

challenges you to get creative. How creative can you be? And giving the gift of your time, Matt and I think is one really meaningful way to do this in order to not spend any money, but to give quality time to someone that you love instead. Right. For For some folks, this could be as simple as a one on one day that you spend with a sibling doing something that they love to do, or a double date with you and your partner and your parents right at

the end of the day. Though relationships are better and more important than physical gifts, until giving that gift of time can actually be even more meaningful than giving someone like an actual item that you've purchased that they would enjoy. Two. Yeah, you know, along that same train of thought, you know, giving a voucher or a coupon for a task er chore that needs to be done is also a way

to to not spend any money. Specifically, think through some tasks I think that you specifically are good at, you know, or even chores that only you can get done. I really appreciate the voucher you just gave me, Matt for cleaning our toilets. I was so nice of you, as

you've proven that's something that you are incapable of. But maybe this is helping a parent go through and organize their photo library on their computer, right, Like, something that's kind of technology related might be kind of a way to think about it. Or another example I'm thinking of is maybe fixing something that is broken that happens to be driving your spouse or your partner crazy. So, for instance, Joel,

I've got a little story for you. Kate's got this fifteen inch cast iron skillet, right, I mean it's huge. We cook everything on there, and she recently got this glass lid that goes on top of it with this tiny little knob handle in the in the middle for this giant fifteen inch pan. Uh, well, it's stripped out. The screw came out of it, and we were no longer able to use it. So we were like, oh, we set it back, thinking maybe it was a manufactured defect. They sent us a new one a few days later,

same stinking thing happened. It's just poorly designed. And so instead of going through the entire return process again, I thought, you know what, I bet I could make my own handle for this thing. And so I found some scrap wood that we had on the basement, made some cuts, sanded it OUs. It was nice and smooth, and kind of ran a screw up in there oiled it, you know. So it was nice and pretty. Dude, that thing works

so well. Uh. And that's something that Kate she like, she couldn't have even purchased something like that, And it's something I was like, I'm not a woodworker, but I was handy enough to make some cuts and find a way to solve a problem that made her life, I mean significantly better. In particular, when it comes to using that lid. And so in our case, that's something that I was able to kind of step in and provide.

Literally didn't cost me anything because that's used scrap wood and found some screws that we had laying around in my screw drawer down in the basement down there where we keep the bikes. But that's the kind of creative problem solving I want to point people towards. And it didn't cost anything. They say, the best businesses are started when somebody sees a pain point and they want to

relieve it by creating something. And maybe the best gift is own by seeing a pain point in someone that he loves life and then finding a way to help resolve that. And oftentimes you're right, I think it can be free or incredibly inexpensive. We wanted to make that happen. But let's talk about another way that somebody could use

their time in order to give a gift. And I'm thinking of maybe like parents who are wanting their attic cleared out because there's so much junk in there um and and they have a hard time going through some of that stuff on their own, and you could help them do that. Stuff's been sitting around maybe for decades. They're afraid of tossing it out because of sentimental reasons. And then you, as they're growing up child, you can

actually help them call their possessions. And you know what I'll say too, it's going to help you on the end one of these days. Or maybe it's even from having to move that stuff one of these days. Yeah, for sure. And maybe it's even your parents who own boxes and stuff that are keeping around in case you might want it. Instead of avoiding that conversation. Maybe this is the year that you tackle that stuff right and

you decided to give some away. You find the things that you want to keep, but that gets rid of a headache or your parents. Right, and this could be especially helpful if all that stuff is is sitting in storage costing them money. Right, I think what ten percent of households rent a sell storage facility and the average cost of that is like just under a hundred dollars a month. So you could save your parents money and solve a problem in their lives just through a little

bit of time. Um, it doesn't actually cost you any money in order to give that gift. Yeah, that's right. And you know, while we're talking, we're kind of talking about coupons and vouchers, that kind of thing. Of course, kids creating certificates of some special chore in there done

that that they could do around the house. Is that's like a classic, right and so like, as a parent, avoid going out with your kid and spending an afternoon wandering around a department store or sitting down on the computer and kind of clicking through Amazon or whatnot where you're helping them to like pick out a gift for your partner. You know, that might just end up being a total waste of money. Instead, take a more thoughtful approach,

help them to create one of these coupons. You know, these can be as simple as like, here are five vouchers to windex all the windows in the house. You know, these can just be one time tasks and then it's over. But it could also involve like ongoing behavior in chores that a kid would be responsible for. And definitely, you know, Joel, you mentioned these pain points a second ago, but like, sit down and challenge your kids to maybe think through

some of these pain points. Ask yourself, what are some areas that make life difficult that you could you know, both sit down figure out a solution for I'm thinking in our house, like laundry is uh just a terrible ongoing problem. We've got three girls, and they all love to constantly change their clothes, and their dirty clothes end up on the floor in the room, we're out in

the hallway, basically all over the place. And so if I was able to sit down with them and we kind of formulated this plan, uh, and we kind of

you know, quote unquote gifted that to Kate. I think that would be basically like the gift of the decade because it's something that she would appreciate so much because so much of her time, in particular when you're virtual schooling and you're kind of managing the kids at home, which Kate does, but so much of your time has just spent making sure the house is like staying together. And I mean it's an incredible hard task. I don't

envy her at all. But if we were able to figure out a solution to that problem, I think that's something that Kate would really like. Yeah, no, I think she would do. You're right, now that I've said it out loud, I'm pretty sure I have to actually follow through and do this and you're committed, buddy, Yeah, you've got to make that happen. I think yeah, I think that is the kind of creative thinking there really needs

to go into gift giving. And you're right, I think you can actually give somebody a gift that they didn't ask for, but that far exceeds any expectations that they had for what they might receive based on creativity and a little bit of time, and of course too, when you spend your time in order to try to enjoy the holidays. It's not just about gifts to your family, but there is also a lot of joy that comes from serving others this time of year, particularly people that

are going through a hardship. And and Matt, I'm I don't know if you've seen the statistics. I think one out of five American families has had to go to a food pantry at some point since the pandemic started. So there are a lot of people in need in particular right now in our country, and serving together with the people you love is a great way to enjoy each other while also providing some of that much needed

assistance that nonprofits out there are looking for. And maybe even your neighbor or people nearby where you live are in need of Yeah, you can make a meal for that elderly neighbor, right, or maybe it's volunteering at a soup kitchen or participating in a coat drive for the homeless. You could even deliver them yourself and have that actually be an activity something that uh that you look forward

to doing around the holidays, you know. But serving others is key to feeling the holiday spirit without spending much money.

So Joel, these are some different ways how we can spend our time, right, But we've got some more ideas for ways to enjoy the holidays for free, ways that involve a little bit of creativity and how does that we approach different activities and we'll get to those right after this break, all right, So we are back and we're talking about ways and Joel, the holidays without spending a dime. And you know, at the core of discover bring these you know, free and kind of creative things

that we can do to enjoy the holidays. Really at the core of this is the ability to bring us together in order to kind of ramp up and build these relationships. Right, Like we're talking about togetherness here and the things that we're that we're going to continue to recommend. Like they're not groundbreaking, you know, but with a little bit of kind of creativity and intentionality, you can make what might have been otherwise an ordinary holiday activity super special.

I think it really does all come down to just your approach and and being intentional with your your time and how you're approaching these things. Yeah, man, I completely agree. And one of the things that our family loves to do. We loved and just like a lot of other families, go around, drive around in your car and look at Christmas lights. Who doesn't love that? Right? There's this, uh, this one house we have to go buy multiple times every year that's close to where my parents live, and

they just go I mean to an absurd level. Uh, the amount of life they use. I would like to know, and I would like to know what their electricity bill is because it gets a little insane, but probably don't want to know it make you cry, right, you might feel that like I can no longer support this. I'm sorry. People do you have like a little donation box, which is great and they deserve it because they bring a

lot of chair. We'll just sit there for like ten or fifteen minutes you know, a couple of nights out of the year and just watch their lights because they're incredible. It's awesome. Or not even a donation too, but like maybe even like writing a thank you note and like kind of tying it to a candy cane like that. That's sort of like something kind of creative like that where they can feel some appreciation for what they're bringing to the neighborhood. I I asked them, they said they

want cash. Actual, yeah, hard, hard money, please, they got to pay that electricity build No pennies and nicchols. Let's start with dimes exactly, exactly. But yeah, if you love looking at Christmas lights as much as we do, there's a website called Christmas light finder dot com and you can find some displays at least near you, or just drive around to neighborhoods. Especially once it seemed to make

exterior holiday decorating a big priority. Matt. You know where we live on our street, Halloween lights are the big deal, and decorating for Halloween Christmas not quite as much. You can change that, though, Yeah, it all comes down to you. I can be the Clark Griswold in this situation and change change the dynamic. But yeah, finding the neighborhoods that do really get into the holiday spirit and and have the lights up and stuff like that. Find those neighborhoods.

Ask some other people where do you go to hunt for Christmas lights? Um? Where are the best places to to check it out? But yeah, that's such a fun experience just hunting for Christmas lights. It's like experience that costs as much as you know, a couple of gallons of gas at most, and it brings a lot of joy. Or you can throw those kids on the electric bike man bike around you don't You don't need a driver.

It depends on how far you're going. I guess your parents do live further away than you could probably bike two with the kids in December at least. Man something else that we're big fans of our Christmas movies. You can have a free Christmas movie night. I think our girls started watching Christmas movies in October. But it's a wonderful life is free. If you've got Prime Video home alone, it's is on Disney Plus. Uh so is Nightmare before Christmas.

But if you don't have those, remember that you can do a free trial. Um, if you don't already pay for those, And there are some solid holiday movies available on Netflix too, And also, man, don't forget some of those different free streaming sites you know, like obviously YouTube but check out to be the Roku channel and Voodoo as well. We'll make sure to put a couple of links in our show notes that will help you to

track down some of those solid streaming options. We recently looked up Elf because the girls are like obsessed with that movie. It's just fun to kind of go back and watch some of these fun movies, uh like through your kid's eyes as well, which is I don't know that. It definitely brings me a lot of joy. But like that's one where we're gonna have to like maybe do like a free trial of stars like that kind of premium add on. I thought I saw that one on

the Roku channel. Maybe, yeah, I need to go look check it out. Yeah, there's some really bad ones out there to actually my gosh, in certain like doing a little looking around to see like what how are they movies right there? I was like them look terrible, Like all the ones on like the Lifetime channel, which are they all have the same premise. It's always about like somebody in the big city go into like a small rural town and really rediscovering the true meeting of Christmas.

I think the maybe one of the worst Christmas movies ever made, Christmas Shoes. Have you ever seen it? No? Okay, it's based on a song and then they turn it into like ah, I think it was a Hallmark Channel movie or something Rob low. Um. I don't encourage it, but I don't know if anybody out there loves it. I'm sorry, sorry for burshoning your Christmas bubble. Not one of the high points that Roblo's career. No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. What's your favorite Christmas movie? By the way,

it's a wonderful life is up there. I cry every time I watched it too. It's been years since I've seen that. I need a Yeah, but we've been watching so much else. I don't have time on my schedule for For old Jimmy Stewart, it's a it's a classic. As the kids get older, I gotta share it with him. Another fun, kind of helpful idea that could bring the family together this time of year to have a good bit of fun. It's hosting a family talent show or

a family karaoke night. Right, you don't even have to have a fancy set up in order to make this happen. Um YouTube is ripe with karaoke songs. It's easy to find what you want to sing and then just go to town and so literally you search any song and karaoke, yeah, and you'll find it. You'll find it and then pull

out your laptop. Make it happen. Get the kids together or what I even just do it with your significant other or your parents, like whoever you are potting with or hanging out with, do a karaoke night will be a ton of fun. It makes me think of our friend Andrew. So every year he hosts a Hanaka party and karaoke is a massive part of that party every year.

Unfortunately obviously not gonna be having it this year. But yeah, it's just a laptop pulled up, plugged into a speaker with some microphones and yeah, every single time you just search whatever song you're looking for plus karaoke, uh and you got the words. Man, ready to go. Easy to do. Also to board games with some hot coco. I mean that's a good way to uh have some fun as well, pull out some board games that you haven't played in quite a while. You already own them. You don't have

to spend any money to buy new ones. But just break out the board games or a card game that you haven't played in a while, and it makes some meaningful memory. He's just playing games together. And something else we've been doing together to as a family is like we always keep our previous year's Christmas cards. Uh, And so we've got kind of gotten into this tradition of when we pull out the Christmas decorations, we've got all

the previous year's Christmas cards all kind of bound together. Uh. And we'd like to flip through this kind of look at how our friends have aged or some well, some not so well, not a good year for them. And it's just fun to see, you know kids obviously as they grew up well in the pictures. But man, something else I wanted to mention too, Like we just kind

of touched on our friends hanaka party. Don't forget about the just the religious significance and meaning behind the specific holiday that you you celebrate, right, and so whether you celebrate Christmas or Quanza or Hanakah, you don't have to spend a lot of money, or any money at all to celebrate these holidays, and so I think keeping that kind of forefront in your mind that can be a great way not only to anchor you to the true reason that we do have these celebrations, but it can

also keep you from spending a ton of money as well. Yeah, Matt, for sure. And you know you mentioned how our annual Hanaka party is not happening this year. Everybody in our friends circles superbum It's one of the most fun things we we usually get to do this time of year, but everyone is experiencing a dearth of Christmas parties for the first time ever. You know, usually there's three, four or five, depending on if you have a work one or you know one that your friends do or your

family does. Holiday parties are part of the season in their a ton of fun. But if you're finding yourself missing the fact that you don't have any to go to this year, start your own. Create your own. It's gonna be obviously on a much smaller scale. Put on your ugly sweater and make some mold wine and live it up with the people closest to you. And if you want to have more people over. Well, then you know you can, uh you have an outdoor fire pit.

You actually did that last night. Yeah. Yeah, we've been doing more of that this time of year. And you know, I turned picking up sticks in the backyard to into like, uh, oh, it'll be fun because we could have a fire pit with the kids, and so it turns like a chore into a fun activity. But yeah, and then you can actually have maybe a few close friends over to hanging outside around a fire pit. But yeah, throwing your own

socially distance outdoor holiday party could can still happen. And so yeah, you gotta just be creative this time of year and in order to be able to enjoy it and celebrate it to the fullest. Yeah, man. And ultimately, you know, we think that money can be more of a barrier to enjoy the holidays than a facilitator or even the reason that we're having a lot of fun. Obviously, budgeting for your gift giving and keeping your your recipient

lists small certainly helps a lot. But we would challenge folks to really get creative and intentional with the activities that you're gonna be partaking in this holiday season and continue to think of ways that you can serve others this time of year. You know, by doing that, we think that you'll probably find that this Christmas will be one with maybe even more joy and fulfillment than you

would have otherwise expected. Joel, even as you're talking about how there's a lack of Christmas parties to go to, it's interesting, how like the the emotion I noted in myself when you mentioned that was that I thought, oh, like, I felt kind of stressed leave my body because typically, man, December is one of the busiest months of the year, is slammed, and there's kids, school performances, and just all sorts of things that that you know, that we're supposed

to be a part of, and it really does add a lot of stress. So and so I'm really looking forward to seeing how I feel as these weeks continue and as we reached the end of the month. Am I going to feel like that, oh, there wasn't enough

going on? Or is this going to be one of the many ways in our lives that we've been able to slow down and really truly focus on what it is that's important in our lives versus the frantic running around and continuing, you know, to do the things that we always do because it's you know, either tradition or it's it's what's expected. I guess this is a small silver lining to the pandemic, but I I really am excited to see how this holiday season, how it'll be

different for a lot of folks. Yeah. I never thought I'd ever used the phrase pandemic silver lining, but but we've used it before, but certainly in relation to the holidays. It almost seems kind of like, how could you say that? Right? But but I think, yeah, there there is a silver

lining here, and it is slowing down. It is a calendar that isn't quite as packed, and there's more time to actually be intentional and think through what you want your holidays to look like this year instead of letting the holidays happen to you, which is what happens to so many of us most of the time. Um. But yeah, we wish you the best in your creative endeavors to make this holiday just incredibly enjoyable. And just remember it doesn't have to cost a whole lot of money. And

actually you're gonna be more relieved come January if it doesn't. Um, All right, now, let's give actually the beer that we had on today's show. This one's called Owl Theory and it's by field Work Brewing Company. Were your thoughts on this beer man? Yeah? Man, this is a check dark lagger like check as in for the Czech Republic. Uh. Is it Czechoslovakia or is it the Czech Republic? I think it's the Czech Republic. I don't know. I'm not

big on world history geography. I know it's in Europe, right, yes, okay, but I do know my beer. Uh. And this beer man, it was really good. You could really taste some of that roasted malt flavor. I feel like one of the ways to describe it is if you took a slice of ho whaite bread and you toasted it like maybe a touch too long, and so like it was just like a really dark toasted sort of flavor going on. But at the same time, it had a really light body. Right,

So this is a logger. It's not a really thick, heavy bodied beer. Uh. And so you know it's not a stout. You know, it's not a porter, but it still has those deeper, darker roasted flavors while finishing really clean, really light. So I feel like it makes it kind of a fun beer to drink this time of year, because I don't you kind of want some of those darker flavors. But at the same time, this isn't the kind of beer that really just weighs you down like eggnog,

you know, right. Yeah, I feel like I don't know how much to add to the description because I think you did such a good job there and I really really enjoyed it. I think it was kind of bordering on porter territory but not quite there, and I think I enjoyed it more than a porter um. You know,

Porters are okay in my book. I really like you really wanted to go ahead and be a stout, like if you hit porter territories, like just finished the drill and become a stout, go all the way to scout or stay in this checked our clogger territory because I really really like this one a lot um. It was delicious, had those roasty notes without being overpowering and without feeling like it was lacking anything. So this one was delicious. Big thanks to our friend Tim for sending this beer away. Yeah.

Tim sent this beer as well as the beer from Monday from one of his favorite breweris out there in Napa. He lives out in California. And you and I we actually participated in that webinar where we talked about personal finance. At least you didn't ask us to talk about world geography, right whereas the Czech Republic, I'm not sure. I don't know. I could not find it on a map, that's for sure. Yeah, but yeah, it's something we really enjoy doing that that webinar.

And so if you're listening and that's something that you are a part of putting it together, maybe for your company or organization, go to how to money dot com, forward slash speak, and yeah, reach out to us is something that Joel and I would love to talk to you about. All right, Matt, that's gonna do it for this episode. For folks, I want the show notes and the links to everything we talked about today on this episode, they can go to how to money dot com. Yeah,

that's right. And if you've been listening and you enjoy our show, we would love it if you left us a review over at Apple Podcast. Just head over there. Maybe you've already done that, and if so, let a friend or family member know about it. We would love to have more people on board listening how they can

handle their money better. Yeah, would be the best holiday gift you could give these two guys a review, letting somebody else know, like spreading the message about getting your personal finances in order y heck yeah man, yeah, I love it all right. That's gonna do it for this episode until next time, Buddy, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,