Managing Holiday Financial Stress and Create a Christmas Budget That Works For You
Photo by Kira auf der Heide via Unsplash
The holidays can be stressful, especially financially. From elaborate travel plans, to family and cultural obligations, to high expectations of gift giving, the time to relax and connect is often overshadowed by all the hustle.
This year’s holiday season is bound to be even more stressful: On top of the pandemic’s lingering impact, the economic downturn will likely add financial pressures to the mix.
How Holiday Financial Stress Impacts Us
Stress is a normal human reaction that results in physical, behavioral, and emotional responses. Financial stress around the holidays is no different – it can manifest emotionally as low mood or heightened anxious feelings and irritability. The pressure to shop and spend increases during the holiday and Christmas season; naturally our stress levels will rise as we try to meet the expectations we’ve conjured up. While those once-a-year sales are exciting and fulfilling your loved ones' wishlists feels good, these can often be a distraction from what we really want during the holidays: this is the time of year we want to be prioritizing connection and creating closeness with our loved ones.
Tips to Manage Financial Holiday & Christmas Stress
As a therapist, I recommend that my clients work on their resiliency skills during the holiday months. While we can’t change the larger economic issues, we can shift our expectations to relieve some of the financial pressure and align on what really matters.
Strengthen Your Tree Trunk
Imagine yourself as a tree, in a natural state without externalities. You are neutral and calm, making fully informed decisions based on your environment and feelings. But when wind blows (pressure from family) or there’s a harsh rain (demanding expectations) these disruptions cause stress and anxiety. When we practice resiliency, we are able to bring ourselves back to that neutral, calm state and alleviate the stress and anxiety.
When I worked as a therapist in the military, the cycle of deployment was emotionally taxing so mental health programs were encouraged to incorporate resiliency skills. I’ve found that building resilience is an incredibly effective tool for most of life’s challenges, especially confronting those self-inflicted, high expectations. The best way to achieve resilience is to couple action with awareness.
Here are a few tips for building that awareness and taking action that will ultimately reduce some of the additional financial stress of the holidays:
Look Within to Identify Where Your Stress Is Coming From
Check-in with yourself to assess your own concerns and emotions related to the season. What feelings are coming up? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Intimidated? Dreadful? Are you dismissing or ignoring your feelings and filling voids by spending money?
Are there things you can do on your own to manage what you’re feeling? Some helpful tools may be: making sure you’re getting good sleep, staying hydrated, maintaining a healthy diet and exercise, having manageable schedules and including relaxing activities to your daily routine.
How is social media affecting you? Social media can give us incredibly unrealistic expectations, especially for big events like the holidays. Perhaps detoxing from TikTok and Instagram can alleviate some of those high expectations.
Set Financial Boundaries
Whether you’re partnered or not, you may have to interact with other family members who have their own ideas of the “perfect” holiday. For some folks, you may be expected to attend multiple family gatherings that may include lots of travel. Ask your family: “What are our expectations for the holidays?” But also ask yourself, “What are my own expectations for the holidays?”
Is there something you have wanted to experience during the holidays? If so, it may be helpful to allow yourself permission to say, “No, I cannot make that.” You may have to communicate and assert healthy boundaries with your family to manage your own level of stress.
Set Realistic Expectations and Create a Christmas Budget
Some families and cultures place a high value on gift giving as it communicates the amount of love and affection they have for one another. If extravagant gift giving adds to the pressure you feel, is there another way to express your love for others without breaking your wallet? Perhaps you can create non-gift giving traditions or organize a gift exchange with a price limit.
Some people are reluctant to budget during the holiday season, as they feel pressured to cultivate a spirit of generosity and expansiveness. However, a good budget doesn’t detract from these values. In fact, by taking a closer look at your finances and setting appropriate boundaries, you can find ways to make your money go further, using it for meaningful purchases while reducing unnecessary expenses and curtailing impulse buying.
Replace Holiday & Christmas Gifts With Quality Family Time
Lastly, perhaps the most important thing to consider is your overall hope for the holiday season.
What is it that you really want to focus on? Perhaps it’s connection. One way to do this is by establishing “rituals of connection” to create shared meaning and closeness – activities like playing a game, making special meals, attending special services for those who are faith-based, going outside to admire holiday decorations, or service-oriented traditions like participating in a toy drive, all of which can be free of financial strain. Opening dialogue around this prior to the holiday can open up new ideas.
What if you could walk away from this holiday season feeling more in control of your emotions and decisions, particularly regarding your spending? What if you could cultivate a renewed sense of connection with those you care for the most? These are achievable, but you just have to take the time to build your awareness around what you’re really seeking during the holidays and turn your awareness into action.