The Best Gifts
We were going to hold off on Christmas… just for the sake of winning the competition, but our coach Mike pointed out that we really wouldn’t learn about HOW to plan for times like Christmas if we did that. We didn’t have any trouble agreeing with him. We have come along far enough in Project Money to realize that we have learned so many lessons that every chance we get to learn more is a good thing.
This lesson about Christmas spending is going to be a good one.
How true. Christmas time in the past has been a Debt Maker for us. Our thinking was that tax returns would be coming in a few months and we would catch up then. No. It never happened in that storybook way. Something always came up.
This year has been planned in a couple of different ways.
Some money has been set aside for gifts and we are thinking about giving more “useable” gifts. There is nothing worse than gifts that a family member does not like or have use for. And the biggest change has been to just realize that we can’t buy what we do not have money for. It is not the end of the world if we have to wait to purchase something for Larry, Jr. and Lexie. They are learning the same lessons we are. For the past couple of years, Larry and I have been purchasing something for the house as our Christmas gift for each other. We decided that it can be something a whole lot simpler than usual. Last year we “over-spent” and it caused a bit of stress.
Giving is a matter of the heart. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church had this wisdom about giving… “Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” Sounds like a good idea for those who are serious about taking care of their finances. It doesn’t mention anything about giving whatever people want. It says give “all you can”. We want to be givers because we love our family, but we don’t want it to hurt our family either. Because we are keeping an eye on what we have in savings, we know what we CAN afford to give. And because we are setting aside for the purpose of Christmas and Birthdays we DO HAVE money available for those instances. Those accounts are in constant flux right now. One day we will be able to give more generously.
Christmas is such an exciting, fun, joyous time. We don’t want to ruin that with the major despair that comes with the January credit card bill. So there are no credit cards this Holiday. Christmas in our family is the celebration of the coming of the Prince of Peace. And that’s the word we have used in our house over and over and over as the result of Project Money… Peace in the Brown House. It is a wonderful outcome as far as we are concerned.
We’ll have to admit, the end of December is looking good. Competition is getting tight. It’s tough not knowing who is in the lead. (Playing Soccer and Football and Basketball is so much easier, you always know who is in the lead!) That’s just another reason to stick to our plan and Just Do It… til the end.
This year has been planned in a couple of different ways.
Some money has been set aside for gifts and we are thinking about giving more “useable” gifts. There is nothing worse than gifts that a family member does not like or have use for. And the biggest change has been to just realize that we can’t buy what we do not have money for. It is not the end of the world if we have to wait to purchase something for Larry, Jr. and Lexie. They are learning the same lessons we are. For the past couple of years, Larry and I have been purchasing something for the house as our Christmas gift for each other. We decided that it can be something a whole lot simpler than usual. Last year we “over-spent” and it caused a bit of stress.
Giving is a matter of the heart. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church had this wisdom about giving… “Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” Sounds like a good idea for those who are serious about taking care of their finances. It doesn’t mention anything about giving whatever people want. It says give “all you can”. We want to be givers because we love our family, but we don’t want it to hurt our family either. Because we are keeping an eye on what we have in savings, we know what we CAN afford to give. And because we are setting aside for the purpose of Christmas and Birthdays we DO HAVE money available for those instances. Those accounts are in constant flux right now. One day we will be able to give more generously.
Christmas is such an exciting, fun, joyous time. We don’t want to ruin that with the major despair that comes with the January credit card bill. So there are no credit cards this Holiday. Christmas in our family is the celebration of the coming of the Prince of Peace. And that’s the word we have used in our house over and over and over as the result of Project Money… Peace in the Brown House. It is a wonderful outcome as far as we are concerned.
We’ll have to admit, the end of December is looking good. Competition is getting tight. It’s tough not knowing who is in the lead. (Playing Soccer and Football and Basketball is so much easier, you always know who is in the lead!) That’s just another reason to stick to our plan and Just Do It… til the end.
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