How to Be Wealthy

 

It’s the Most Expensive Time of the Year!

 

Do you smell that? Underneath the last wafts of pumpkin spice paraphernalia and the new aroma of pine trees and Christmas sugar cookies? Do you know what it is? It’s the smoke from millions of credit cards as they get swiped and inserted with gleeful abandon, in credit card machines all over the world! Tis the season to spend some serious money. Now is the time of year that heat proof wallets would really come in handy.

 

It’s something I see happening all over, every year. People going out of their way to give their kids and loved ones a “good Christmas” with as many gifts as possible as the gold standard. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about Christmas. I love it.

 

In fact, I love that quote from Scrooge’s nephew Fred when he says Christmas… “[is] a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

 

I think he gets it right, except for the part about “people below them.” Seems that Fred still subscribed to the notion that people are not truly equal, even though his speech said otherwise. Ironic since his own uncle looked down on him for being careless with money. However, Fred got it mostly right, but we shoppers do not. We forget that Christmas is a time to celebrate our humanity, not shop ’til we drop.

 

Somehow, though, we lost the true meaning of Christmas, which requires effort and attention, and replaced it with gifts galore. I think we adopted the attitude that if we are giving an expensive gift, the person we are giving it to will accept that gift as a substitute for our genuine care, time and thoughtful consideration. That is just not right and it’s a shame we’ve gotten this far off track. It’s people who mean the most at Christmas, not gifts.

 

Now is a perfect time to tell you a little of my story so you can see where I’m coming from and how I got here. I am the youngest of four kids. See, that’s me and the family in the picture I included. I’m the cute baby in my Mom’s arms. Flash forward a few years and my parents got divorced when I was eight. Before the divorce, my parents fought about money because they were terrible money managers and so, my family was constantly broke. We were even more broke after the divorce, but that’s another story for another time.

 

On top of the divorce drama, there was this fun little wrinkle, I wasn’t allowed to believe in Santa Claus for religious reasons. An elementary school scandal, to be sure! My Dad would give us whatever presents we were getting on Christmas Eve and then tell us that if there was such a thing as Santa Claus, there would be more presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Of course, there never was. Wah, wah! Talk about being a Scrooge! How about that for a fun childhood memory!

 

Now I think it’s kind of funny but, not everyone does and lots of people were mad about it at the time. You see, I was the only five year old in kindergarten who went around proclaiming “there’s no such thing as Santa and you’re a dummy for believing in him.” Lord, what a brat I was! It’s a wonder I didn’t get socked for that, and other things, too.

 

At the time, I remember my Mom getting so mad because the school called her and complained about my *cough* “revelation.” She chewed my Dad a new one over that little gem and I remember thinking it was a bad idea to tell other kids the truth about Santa, oh, and where babies come from. (Thanks to my older siblings, that wasn’t a mystery, either!) Now, before you rail against my Dad, remember there are other religions that don’t celebrate Christmas, either. Dad wasn’t a bad guy, he just made a few mistakes. And, don’t we all?

 

As usual, you may be asking yourself what does any of this have to do with personal finance? Aside from the obvious implied message of “don’t spend too much money on Christmas presents,” I want to ad my voice to the refrain that we’ve been hearing on social media for the last few weeks. It’s more important than ever that we all make the effort to revisit the idea that Christmas is not about gifts or time off from work and school (really, though, what normal kid would complain about that?). It’s about celebrating the brotherhood of man. It’s about stopping and talking to people you pass while walking through your busy life and wishing them well, letting them know you see them, hear them and value them.

 

Another huge benefit of this activity is it’s totally free! It doesn’t cost a dime to smile at your Pelican trash man and wave a cheerful holiday greeting as he disposes of that petrified turkey carcass that’s finally picked completely clean of extra dry meat. Yummy!

 

The best, most cost effective Christmas gift is time spent with your kids, family and friends playing board games or watching those stop action Christmas movies that have been around since electricity was invented. You know the ones, The Year Without Santa Claus or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or, one of my personal favorites, A Charlie Brown Christmas. They’re on TV every year. For free! I’m over 40 and I still watch those silly movies. We love them at my house!

 

So what’s the lesson here? I’ll tell you… Even after a childhood full of disappointing Christmas gift episodes (I never did get that Gilligan’s Floating Island toy that I desperately wanted), I’ve reached a point in my life where I can now look back and see that my Christmases were actually pretty good.

 

First of all, I didn’t have to go to school during the holidays! Yay! There were at least two weeks of no trudging through the snow with bread bags over my goofy moon boots while stuffed in my snowsuit like a ridiculous sausage. You know, A Christmas Story is funny because lots of us remember being Randy, crammed into a snowsuit and stuck on our backs in the snow like some kind of weird, turtle-ish snow critter that can’t get up or roll over. A true mid-western childhood tragedy.

 

Also, we usually got something for Christmas. Okay, sometimes it was only underwear but still, it was a gift. There was usually snow to play in, too. (Hence, the moon boot/bread bag/turtle-ish critter fiasco).

 

Then after church on Christmas day, we would pile into the family Volkswagen Beetle (yes, all 6 of us), and drive three hours to my grandparents house in Indiana for a fun family dinner. Boy, could my Grandma cook! The food was always so good. To this day, I’d kill for her mashed potatoes and dinner rolls. They were AMAZING! There were always lots of family, including cousins we could play with, too. All in all, I would have to say Christmas when I was a kid was pretty fun, without lots of presents.

 

Last but not least, I remember one Christmas when I was a very young kid. There was family in our church that needed some help. The father had somehow injured his hand by falling through a plate glass window. I remember because he had a creepy looking contraption on the hand with laces and springs, very Edward Scissorhands and weird enough to freak out a five year-old!

 

Anyway, he couldn’t work so the family was having a particularly hard time that Christmas. I remember the church put together a box with a canned ham, gifts for the kids and other things. My family delivered it one evening and though I don’t remember specifics or how the family reacted, I do remember feeling happy about helping them, even when I knew my family wasn’t exactly wealthy. I do remember being a little envious of the gifts for the kids but, I got over it when I realized they were having a harder time than we were.

 

That memory is especially poignant now, a few short weeks after an election that revealed a huge number of people in our country who are having a hard time and feel forgotten. So, my request is this, if you have time or extra money to give, go volunteer somewhere to help out in some way. Even a small thing like taking a bag of food to a food bank is helpful.

 

If you don’t have extra to give, there are other ways you can help. Just take some time to think about who is in your life that you can simply smile at and wish them well, regardless of who they voted for, what they look like, how they pray or who they love. Make the commitment to do it not just at Christmas, but every time you see them. It doesn’t cost anything and takes very little effort but, it can make a world of difference for them and for you. In other words, how to be wealthy includes knowing how to be generous.

 

Well, that’s it for me and the Dollar Lama this year. We have lots of work to do, so we’ll start back with the blog in January. We both wish you a very happy holiday season and a wonderful 2017! See you next year!

Sincerely,
Joy Alford-Brand

Your Dollar Lama

 

P.S.  Don’t forget to check out Money Basics for a quick, fun read about money management and our online courses by clicking here to help you with credit management and budgeting.