A Whole New Meaning to Christmas in July!
Hey Reader,
Christmas is high up on the list of one of the most stressful times of the year. Whether it’s finding the right present, navigating the family patterns or introducing a new partner.
I adore Christmas, it is my most favourite time of the year and even more so when I am back in my homeland of the UK. I’ve had at least 13 Aussie Christmases, but it’s just not the same when its 30 degrees outside. I did have to laugh at the swiftness of turnover from Halloween to Christmas décor.
I popped into the supermarket on Monday afternoon, and the shelves were decked out in all the Christmas paraphernalia. Bye, Bye Jack ‘O lantern and Hello Santa!
One of the biggest stressors is around the Christmas spend. It’d the time for good cheer and for giving, and I like to try keep this front of mind. It is so easy to get caught up in the commercial side of the holidays and seeing that in Australia alone, we spent a whopping $47.5 billion during the Christmas shopping period. About 21% of people go into debt over Christmas, and honestly no one wants to be paying off credit card debt associated to Christmas present during Christmas in July.
Let’s not overspend to the point where we are paying off our Christmas debt well into the second half of the following year. Here are a few tips I like to follow to curb the Christmas splurge:
• Stagger your shopping and buy a couple of presents a week. I start my Chrimbo shopping in September, this is more because I am totally smashed wrapping up projects and I absolutely cannot deal with the December crowds. Even if you haven’t started, there’s still 8 weeks to get ahead of the game and buying early, means you are less likely to impulse buy.
• Set a budget for your total spend. My good friend has a family of 6, and once you add in the extended family for the main event there are normally 40 plus people. Set a budget for your total spend or even better, do Kris Kringle and buy one meaningful gift for whoever you pull out of the hat.
• Ditch the credit card! Post covidalypse most stores prefer a card rather than cash payment. However, you can leave that credit card at home. Opt for a debit card you can preload $$ on before hitting the shops, this will help keep you to budget.
Holiday Freebies!
I’ve decided to run my own kind of 12 days of Christmas. From the 13th December to Christmas Eve, I will be popping into your inbox with a Chrimbo gift.
In Joy
alishawaterman.com
Hi Reader, By the time this lands in your inbox, I'll be in Bali. The last time I was there I was single, no kids, and deep in my Kundalini yoga and meditation phase. I spent the first half of the trip in full spiritual immersion and, because I've always loved a bit of balance, the second half drinking cocktails on the beach and dancing under the stars until the early hours of the morning. Both halves were perfect. That was a completely different chapter of my life. Different version of me....
Hi Reader, I'm really proud of something and I want to share it with you. I've finally got regular breaks built into my life. Properly built in. Not squeezed in around everything else. Not contingent on everything being done first. Actually scheduled, protected, and looked forward to. And our upcoming trip to Bali for a wedding has been the perfect excuse to celebrate that. Here's why this feels significant to me. There was a time when the thought of going away for a week would have sent me...
Hi Reader, The boys came home with their school photos this week. Anyone else wondering why these things take so long to come back? They had them taken in about the third week of term. It's been almost six months. I opened the envelope and just stopped. They looked so big. So grown. So much more themselves than the boys I dropped at the school gate back in February. And then the bigger realisation hit me. These photos were taken six months ago. They're even further along now than they were...