She's On The Money - Your Top Christmas Savings Hacks!

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

We love Christmas, and we love our community. It also gets us incredibly excited to hear your money wins and tips, so we thought...why not combine all of our favourite things in this episode in the week of Christmas? Today we are celebrating our top 10 SOTM Community Christmas savings hacks, listen in and take notes! Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kurni, Wolperi and Awadjuri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjuri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money.

She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. My name is Jessica Ricci and today I'm here as always with Queen Victoria Devine. Hello, Jess. I'm actually really disappointed in you today. Why? Because you could have started that as, hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for happy Christmas. You know what I missed? And we made this pun last year. I'm going to start again. Everybody

pretend this is the start. Hello and welcome to Trees on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. You are. I can't believe I missed that. I'm really disappointed in you. We have it on a bauble and everything. After this episode is recorded, you need to go and think about what you've done. I'll go sit in the corner.

But do you want to talk about Christmas? I always want to talk about Christmas. Nobody is surprised. Not at all. Last year, we did four episodes. This year, we've reined it in and this is the second of two. I'm really disappointed, but we did have to negotiate them down because there were so many other topics I really wanted to cover.

A hundred percent. We love Christmas and we love the community. It gets us so excited to hear everybody's money wins and tips. So we thought, why not combine all of those things together into this one fun, amazing episode? How are we incorporating investing, Jess? We're not. Okay. All the things you love. Yeah. All the things I love. Sorry. Honestly, no one thought about me today. It's fine. It's fine. All right, Jess, today we are obviously celebrating our top 10 She's on the Money community Christmas savings hacks, because recently we asked you guys for your tips and

tricks and you obviously delivered. So today, Jess, you and I are going to be picking our top five each and we're going to be sharing them on the show. Now, what you guys didn't know is that we've mixed them up because Jess and I could not pick which ones were our top five. So we put them together and we have a list of 10 and it's going to be like picking team members in primary school for your sporting team. And it'll be like, you get to go. So Jess will pick the first and then I'll go and I'll pick the next. And then the last two will be our least favorites. But because they are the top 10, our producer's laughing. But like, I'm not laughing, but because they're the top 10, we obviously love all of them. But we're just bringing some like primary school sports energy

to this. Oh, spicy. Now, don't forget last week, we also spoke about how to navigate the financial and social anxieties at this time of year. So if you missed that episode, if you're feeling a little bit stressy, please go back and listen to it. We want you to look after yourselves and feel good about this time of year. And this episode is just meant to be a little bit lighthearted and fun. Absolutely. It is so important to keep that in mind because it is honestly such a tough time of the year for so many people. And the pressure that the festive season puts on us, I just feel like can be really unfair. So Jess, according to a study from MIQ Australia, did you know that 34% of Australians are expecting to spend more this holiday season compared to last year,

despite rising inflation rates, interest rates, and the cost of living expenses. 34% is a mind-boggling amount, especially when you factor that in on top of everything else, like you just said, that's going on. So hopefully some of these little hacks and tricks, it might be a bit close to Christmas now, but file them away and save them for next year because I think that these are the kinds of things that honestly are really smart and can make a huge difference if you take the time to plan starting now. Are you feeling like you're spending a lot more this festive season? Yeah, I think so. I think especially alongside like just the cost of like food for dinner, like we do a Friendsmas and the cost of just a dinner, like we have the same

amount of people this year, but the cost of feeding everyone has gone up because the price of all of the basic stuff has gone up. I feel like my allocation within my budget hasn't really shifted too significantly, but the money is just not going as far, which is hard. We should do an episode next year at some point about how to reallocate your budget and like where you probably should fluff it out a bit keeping in mind the fact that the cost of living is increasing I feel like talking about like hey like on average people are spending x amount more on their groceries so this is good to be mindful of and I'll do some research and bring that to the table because I feel like at the moment we're all feeling the pinch but some of us just can't articulate where or when we just

feel like we have less money and back to the question I asked you Jess I feel like I've been spending more because one I'm going out with more people at this time of the year and trying to catch up with everybody. But two, we have bigger Christmas things planned this year for like my family and for Steve's family. Like there's just a lot more going on. So I feel like, Jess, we are not the only ones feeling the pinch this year in one way or another. So how about we get into it? Sounds good. What is your first little hack that you've got from the community? Okay. This one is very self-involved because I obviously love Shopback and think it's a really, really good money win. But our friend Chloe and Tennille both say use Shopback to save money on

gifts and buy gift cards for you to spend over the festive period. And I just feel like that one straight off the bat at this point in the year, if you are not on shop back yet, like I feel like a bully. I'm not a bully, but like it's just a no brainer because it's free money. It's not even like sign up and they'll sell your data. No, no, no. Sign up and they'll give you free money. Money win. That is absolutely a money win. My first little hack comes from so many people and I really like it because this is exactly what I do. Amy, Shazza and a bunch of other people all said, get your list ready in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. So start thinking about people early because then you can cash in on those sales and get the things that you're

already going to get, but usually with a really nice discount. And then you can often stack it with shop back or cash back on top of that. So I've got another one. Are you ready? And I feel like this one really resonates with me because I've been known to do this. So our friend D suggested baked or homemade or secondhand gifts, which we have done for a number of years in our family. It's handmade, homemade, or secondhand is the rule. And then we give each other like a limit of how much we need to spend. And I think I've hopped on about this. If you listen to our Christmas episodes last year, I believe it was Jess, I told you all about the kitchen that I got on Gumtree. That was an absolute circus. It was a kid's kitchen, but because it was secondhand, it was

actually really well looked after. I think we picked it up for like $20 or something on Gumtree. But the bonus was when we went to pick it up, the guy was like, oh my gosh, like my daughter's so sad about losing this. And she was there and I was like, oh my gosh, don't worry. It's going to like, you know, my niece and my nephew. And I showed her a photo and she gave us all of the like little kids pots and pans and plates and cups and fake fruit and vegetables and stuff. And she's like, oh, they'll need this and they'll need that. And like the dad was really happy because I think He was just getting rid of a whole heap of junk from the playroom. I mean, long story short, it did cost us a lot in fuel because we brought the wrong car.

It didn't fit in that car. I had to drive home, swap cars, come back while Steve, dressed in an ugly Christmas sweater, sat on the side of Smith Street late at night in Fitzroy, which is a one out of ten experience. I think people thought he was crazy because not only did he have an ugly Christmas sweater on, but he also was just sitting with a kid's kitchen and people were kind of like, bro. I would think that guy was weird if I walked past him. Bro, what?

And Steve was just like, I was mortified because every second person walking past was like, dude, why are you calling dibs on this kid's kitchen on the side of the road? Like this makes no sense. But anyway, I just feel like homemade, handmade or secondhand is actually a really good idea. I also have, and we probably should post it on our stories, a killer recipe that impresses everybody for passion fruit yo-yos that have never done me a disservice. Like every time I make it and gift it to someone, they're like, those are the best yo-yos ever. And I'm like, thanks taste.com.au for the recipe.

Bye. Oh my God, amazing. Yeah, I feel like upcycled gifts are really underrated, like buying something really affordably and then making it personalized. And then you can tell whoever you're giving it to, I made this, like I did it with my hands and my love. How nice is that? And to be honest, Jess, going back to my kitchen, I bought it, I cleaned it, I gave it to the kids. You would have bought it. You would have like pulled the thing apart, redesigned the thing, painted it in their colors, named it, done absolutely everything to make it a completely different kitchen and then gifted it to them. I don't have your creativity, but like that could

be an idea. Yeah. Give it a little zhuzh. I have a hack here from Nicole who some people might disagree with this, but I really love a practical gift. And she said she has asked her parents to pay for the plumber that she desperately needs as her Christmas gift. And I thought that was genius. That's a great gift because at the moment trades are so expensive as somebody who is currently at the tail end of renovating their house. Ooh, like she's speno. She's speno. And it's one of those things like nobody goes, you know what I want to spend money on? The plumber. Drainage. Like not a single person. I'd really like my toilet unblocked for Christmas.

I feel like if you have something practical that you need, whether you need textbooks for school or runners because yours broke or like something that you go, oh, I'm not excited to buy that. That's a good gift. Yeah. No, I love that. And vice versa, right like maybe you could start asking your friends and family if you're like oh what do you want instead of saying oh Jess what do you want for Christmas because I'm not gonna outwardly say immediately plumber like I wouldn't think of that be like oh Jess like you're renovating at the moment do you want me to pay for you know something towards that yeah friends would jump up and down over that like if you offered you can pay for my plumbing this year Jess probably not

but okay sorry sorry well you already paid for it so lucky you I was gonna say you're doing a arena, I feel like it's a very big bill. All right, Jess, I have another one for you. Are you ready? Yes. What have you got? Okay. So this is another one and I'm being very self-indulgent because I'm just picking the ones that I resonate most with. It kind of happens when you're picking sports teams. You definitely should keep doing this with money wins, but I feel like, you know, growing up, I hated that like, oh, you pick, I pick, you pick, because I was literally always the last kid because I was a little nightmare in PE. I wouldn't pick me either, but like, don't make me feel that bad, you know? So like do it with your money wins. Don't do it with your

children. One out of 10 idea. But this one I'm being self-indulgent because it is literally something my family do. And that's secret Santa for the whole family with a $50 budget. So in my family, because it's a little bit bigger and a little bit more extended, all of the adults get together and we do a secret Santa. So it's kind of, we call it Kris Kringle, but I think it's exactly the same thing, right? Where we pull names out of a hat, literally, that's how technical it gets. All of our names go on a piece of paper, get ripped up, pulled out, and that's who we're buying a Christmas present for that year. So on Christmas day, everyone gets a present, but they get one present. And the amount of money that is spent on that, I mean, it could be 50 bucks,

it could be a hundred dollars, but I think the most important thing is that that amount is a reasonable amount for you and your family to purchase. So if your budgets are at $20, just call it $20. I don't think it should extend past that if one member in your family can't afford that. I think we should set the baseline at a baseline, not go, oh, well, it's $100 and you know your aunt or your uncle or your cousin just can't afford that. I think that we should set it lower or set a different rule and just be mindful without saying like, oh, Jess, I've set it lower because of you. It should just be use your brain and work it out because I just think that, you know, this time of year isn't the time of year that we point out when people are struggling

or that maybe they can't afford it but I think just you know picking something that's a little bit more mindful is really helpful one the pressure's off because you only have to think of one present but two it's far less financially stressful yeah and if you don't want to do where you buy for specific people if you've got a big family and you don't see your aunts your uncles and your cousins all that often bad Santa or naughty Santa is a really fun one as well where you just buy a general gift and usually people try to make it a bit funny or a bit fun and then you steal gifts from everybody. And that's a really good way to involve everyone and you can set the same limit as well. Pro tip, as someone who has also done this, the Nerf gun always

performs the best. Oh, brilliant. Because we all want to shoot everybody after. So it's just like a lot of fun. So everybody wants the Nerf gun because everything else is like, I don't want a candle. Also one year I put together a pack and it was a tiny bottle of gin, a bottle of tonic water, and then like an orange, a lemon and a lime. And that was actually a really good Kris Kringle present, because one, it felt a little bit customary. Who doesn't want a gin and tonic? I mean, people who don't like gin and tonics like you probably don't want a gin and tonic. But I feel like that was a good Kris Kringle present, because who doesn't love that? Yeah. Or like little silly Kmart appliances, like waffle makers or fairy floss machines.

Go off as well. Absolutely. The next hack I have comes from Madeline. If you don't mind living on the edge, you can visit Coles or your local deli on Christmas Eve, kind of close to closing time, because more often than not, they're heavily discounting all of the product because they're closed the next day. I guess the downside of this is if you're going to Coles at 4pm on Christmas Eve, you may or may not, well, firstly get trampled and also quite possibly not have the widest selection to choose from. But if you're one of those people who's really creative with how you cook, or if you're not that fussed on what you get, it might be a nice way to snag

some hot deals. Yeah, that's definitely living on the edge for me, Jess. Like I'm not going to wait till almost closing time for my food to be discounted maybe because what if it's not then I might not have any food because I really needed a roast xyz and they don't have it because they just discounted it and someone else got it that's true the anxiety is wild that's true I mean shop at your local stores as well more often than not your local butcher or your local fruit market will have stuff at a better cost per unit price than like Coles or Woolies would so that's the way you could go as well speaking of Coles or Woolies my next hot tip is from our friend Mace and Mace has said, you need to make sure that you set your Woolies Everyday Rewards card to save for

Christmas. I didn't even know this was a setting, but it's a setting on your rewards card that you select and all of your gift cards and discounts get added up and you can redeem them at Christmas time so that your grocery bill isn't as hectic. That's really, really smart. I like that one a lot, particularly because then you don't really notice, like it's not like you're missing out on money. You're not putting money aside, but those rewards stack up. If like 10 bucks here, 10 bucks so you could have a couple hundred dollars by the end of the year. I feel like I've heard of people doing this before in our community like and when I say I feel like I know I have but I just assumed that everybody was kind of like saving their discounts for Christmas not that it was an actual

setting which is genuinely genius. Very very smart and I've got a similar one here from Chelsea who says do the same thing but with flybys basically she just saves all of her dollars and redeems them at Christmas. What a genius I feel like I'm not nearly that smart but you know what I'm going to do this year because I think I have a fair few dollar rules in my Shopback account. I'm going to pull that out and see whose Christmas presents I can pay for from Shopback and share the update later once I've done it. Really smart. I can't wait to hear that. All right. Holly, she has a really good suggestion. Jess, are you ready for this? I think that some people are going to be salty on this. Last week I said cancel Christmas, but Holly said just don't buy presents. Ah, your

face. Jess is very unhappy, Holly. No, no, no, no. You know what? Like for some people not doing presents works for them and aligns to their values. But as we said last week, gift giving is my love language and I just couldn't. However, if that's a choice that works for you, I am in full support of it. I kind of love this because Jess's face was just like, no. And then she was like, but if it aligns to your goals and values, like, I think this is very important. And I'm like, all right, Jess, it aligns to my goals and values to not buy Christmas presents. Are you okay with that? Yeah, of course. You are not. You're a little face. I don't expect you to get me a present. No, you'd be so sad. But I would want to get you a present. I don't want your

present. Well, too bad. I already bought it. Moving right along. Lucky last came from Emily, Alyssa and about a thousand other people who all said, try to buy gifts throughout the year when they are on sale. And this is something that I got from my mum and I feel like a lot of other people's mums would be the same. We always had like a gift cupboard where, especially when I was a kid, you know, you get invites to parties really last minute and stuff like that. So there was always a gift cupboard where if she saw Barbies on sale or something, you know, that was age appropriate. Did you loot the cupboard? I would have looted the cupboard. It was very, very tempting, very tempting, but she knew exactly what was in there. I could never have

got away with it. And she would have seen you with the new Barbie and she'd be like, Jess, you don't have an income. Where did this come from? A thousand percent. But now I do it a bit more intentionally. And when I see things that remind me of my friends and family, things that I think they will love and they're on sale, I more often than not will pick them up and pop them aside to be given at either a birthday or Christmas or any other kind of occasion where I might want to just give them a little something, something. I feel like that's a genius idea in theory, because that would not work for me. No, why not? Because like, let's just use you as an example, because obviously, Jess, I'm going to buy you a Christmas present. I know your love

language, but also I really love gift giving as well. But if I had a gift cupboard and I just collected things throughout the year, babe, I already have in my head what I want to buy you. Yeah. So even if I bought something and put it in the cupboard and put it away for later, like, I don't want that now. I want to get something different, so it would be a waste of money for me because I would also loot my own cupboard and take all the stuff out of it. Zero self-control from Victoria Devine. Is anybody surprised?

What? I'm not going to go to Mecca and buy a gorgeous, like, gift set, even if it's on sale. You best believe I want that body butter. Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. The Boom Boom Cream, everybody loves it. Do they have a gift pack this year?

Oh, 1,000% they do. Everyone's getting Boom Boom Cream. Let's go to a really quick break, and when we come back, VD, you and I are going to share some of our favorite top tips. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back, everybody. Today, we are talking all about Christmas hacks. We just shared all of our favorite community ones. And Victoria and I have got a couple of our own up our sleeve to finish up the episode. My first one. I'm glad you're going first because mine are a little on the dryer slash non-existent side, I'm less festive than Jessica Ricci, which is so fine.

That's okay. We all have different goals and values. But when I got asked to write down my favorite Christmas hacks, I have written down all the things that I shared in the first part of this episode. So good for me. You're on the same wavelength as everybody, which doesn't surprise me because they're a bunch of smart cookies. My first tip for you guys is to buy Christmas decorations, wrapping, things of that nature on Boxing Day. You're obviously not going to use it this year, although maybe if you've pushed your Christmas out, like not everyone, I know a lot of families will do two Christmases. So maybe you've got one at the 25th and one like a week later. Yeah, we do a Christmas on like Boxing Day or a week later because there's just too many

people. So you can snag a hot deal. Most of the time, Christmas stuff goes a minimum 50% off the day after Christmas. You can do it online. You can go to your local Kmart. You can go to wherever. I know that historically it's been like a real like fight to the death at the shops but the last I mean obviously last year and the year before with COVID but I feel like more and more people are turning to online and if you are going to go Boxing Day shopping go early because if you go when the shops open it's almost always really quiet. I feel like that is really smart. Following on from that when it comes to kids Christmas presents recently I have found especially with younger kids on Christmas day, they just want to be entertained. I have a million times over

bought really cute outfits or really fancy toys, but it's the things that immediately engage them that are really, really popular. So at my wedding, and I guess this could be a really good Christmas hack as well, is I made them gift bags because yes, I had kids at my wedding. I don't regret that for a second. I adore them and I want them around me like literally forever. I couldn't imagine having a wedding without having the kids there, but I made them gift packs. And to be honest, I just went to Kmart. They were so cheap to put together. I found 98 cents coloring in books, Jess. Money win. Yeah. Coloring pencils were like $3. I bought some like pretty novel lollies. Kmart, again, really cheap. I just bought a multi-pack and then like spread it among a whole

heap of kids. I bought some fancy sunnies. I bought glow sticks and Play-Doh and they were psycho over it. They were like, oh my God, it's like mini versions of all their favorite things and a coloring in book. And it kept them entertained for literally the whole day. Like they had one new thing and another new thing. And I think being able to open these like smaller gifts and have things that were keeping them entertained is a really good idea. But literally, I think each gift pack, I mean, I did spend an extra dollar per gift bag, Jess, which you probably don't need to do. But if you put something like that together for kids, as opposed to going and buying them the latest Lego or Barbie brand. Like that stuff immediately

starts at like $49 from my experience. They're going to love it. It's novel. It's exciting. You can save some money on kids' presents. And from my experience, kids don't fight over who got what and when and where because they're all getting a coloring in book. They're all getting pencils. They're all getting a lolly. And the kids in my family, they just started trading things as opposed to going like, oh, you got, you know, this different thing. It was, oh, you got that color glow stick. I want that one. You can have my pink one. And it was actually really sweet. Yeah. They wheeled and dealed like lollies and glow sticks and they all had the same pencils, but like one of the little ones wanted all of the same color pencil for some reason. But you know

what? You do you, boo. Here's 10 pink pencils. You live your best life, queen. Go off. My next little tip for you guys is a plant one, because we know a lot of people in the shoes and the money community of plant people, just like us, there's kind of two options here. So if you already have a lot of plants, why don't you propagate them? Give them away as gifts. If you've got a devil's ivy, give it a little snippy snip. Oh, you got to liberate it. You got to liberate it. Absolutely. So snippy snip, liberate your own plant. Or if there's one, you know, in public, theoretically, maybe in your office that you want to liberate by all means. Which we would never do. We've never done that. Absolutely not. Don't know what you're talking about, but you can get a little cutting.

You can buy it, Kmart, like $1 little glass jars. You could fill it with some water, pop the propagation in it. Devil's Ivy as well. Yeah. I wish propagation was as complicated as the word is. Yeah. Because it's not. You just snippy, snippy, put it in water and it just grows.

Yeah. So you probably need a bit more time. Maybe that's a next year thing because right now it's nearly Christmas. So you can get them rooted up. The other option is you could go to your local Bunnings or I know IKEA sell a lot of like really affordable, larger plants and succulents, buy a big one, split it up into smaller ones, repot them. Ikea sells pots for like two or three dollars. The two dollar shop have really cute ceramic ones as well. I think this idea is great. Yeah, split it up and then you turn your one

twenty dollar plant into five little gifts. Five dollar gifts. Which is perfect for people. Money win. Can I have a turn now? Absolutely. Okay, so I love an aesthetic wrapping paper. Wrapping paper is really expensive though. So you know what I do? I go down to Officeworks and I buy a 50 meter roll of PBS craft paper roll. It's brown paper. It's really nice. $10 and 28 cents, 50 meters. So I wrap all of my presents in brown paper. And then the money that I spend is spent at Kmart on cute ribbons and stuff, because you can pick up a really big roll of like ribbon or, you know, like what's the curling ribbon or whatever it is. Like per roll, it's like three or $4 for a really big roll. Everything matches. It's really cute. And then you know what I do?

Because I'm not buying cards for all of my presents under my tree. I buy one gold Posca marker and then in gold, I write their names. Oh my God, so cute. And I think it's really cute, really aesthetic. And then I literally have that roll of wrapping paper from last year. And I think the year before, like it was 50 meters. I have not run out yet. Oh my gosh. On the note of little tags, another thing that I've done before, I did the brown paper vibe as well. You can buy like a little $5 like a lump of air dry clay and so I'll buy that roll it out and then you can use if you have cookie cutters or you can freehand it into fun little shapes you just pop a hole through it with a pen let it air dry and then you can paint their name on it you can paint it

different colors and if you put a little string so you put it on the present and it's like the tag for the gift but then they keep it and it can be an ornament for their tree Jess how nice that's the difference between you and me I bought a sharpie you made them an ornament it's just not happening my other update though which is like sidetrack I do apologize is this year keep all of your Christmas cards because if you keep all your Christmas cards and Christmas tags I feel like whenever you get a gift bag the Christmas tag hasn't got any writing on it you can cut off the part that has been written and then you can make like tags for your gifts for the next year very smart we've got all the tag look really good on brown paper everything looks good on brown

paper I feel like. If you see me gifting anything in not brown paper be like oh wow she's run out of that brown paper because like I'm not done here like I will keep using it I am obsessed I think this hack is genius. That is actually so smart. The last tip that I have is a bit of a shop back hack that someone shared with us previously and I can't remember who it was but I think it works particularly well for Christmas. We're gonna get in trouble for sharing this and shop back are gonna come for us and be like Jess and Victoria. I hope not. Why are you gaming the system. We literally work with you to put us in the best position and you're not though. That's exactly it. Like it's not, we're not doing anything naughty, but it is really clever.

We're not doing shop back any favors. No. Well, no. But what you can do is if you're looking to purchase something from somewhere that maybe isn't on shop back or maybe doesn't have a really high amount of cash back, like if it's just sitting at like one or 2%, have a look if you can purchase a gift card for the same place, because a lot of the time the gift cards have the higher percentage back. You get one of your recalls or target gift cards that more often than not can be used at multiple franchises that fit under everything and then use that to buy gifts. So if you're like, oh, I really want this DVD. I don't know why DVD is the first thing I thought of. Who's buying a DVD? Do they even sell DVDs

still? I have no idea. Okay. You know what? You really want to buy a copy of Investing with She's on the Money. Oh, that's even better. Imagine if you said that right off the bat. I don't know why I thought of DVD. That's fine. You really want a copy of She's on the Money, investing with shares of money. Apparently a DVD is better though. So if you see like Barbie Swan Lake, pick that up. I'd love a copy of Barbie Swan Lake. That movie pops off. Anyway, back on track. You know, you want a copy of investing with shares of money or the OG shares of the money, maybe a bundle, but you're like, ah, the discount on, you know, Booktopia or whatever platform isn't as high as I would like it to be. Or you want the Booktopia discount.

Right, right, right. But you don't want to pay for shipping. If you have to pay shipping, buy the gift card, go get it in store. Exactly. So you've gamed the system. You've got extra cash back. You've got exactly what you want. I feel like that's the best tip I can give. Shop back, hire us. We will continue to make you less money. Have you got one last one for me, V, before we wrap up? I think we've talked a lot, Jess, about like buying things and presents and gifts, but I also think my last hack is actually just quality time. And that's what people are, you know, I guess, missing out on this year. It's funny because at the start of this episode,

we said that most people are going to spend more money this year than they did last year. but do you know why? Quality time because we're actually able to see people and enjoy their company and I think that if we're all reminded that Christmas isn't necessarily about the stuff unless you're Jess in which case it's very important that the stuff is still there but I think it's really important to remember that if it's not in your budget I think that's okay too. A really beautiful card or a homemade present or some cookies or something that you've made or even just negotiating not to have any gifts that year is also a really beautiful present because from my perspective I'd much prefer to say to you Jess hey I just don't have it in my budget for Christmas

but I'd still love to hang out is much better than avoiding someone completely and not enjoying their festive season at all because you're worried about them expecting a gift from you because I promise no one does. No and as someone who is like I would say the queen of Christmas. I'm going to call myself the queen of Christmas. I love Christmas. I'll call you the queen of Christmas. I love giving gifts. I would not be even one tiny little drop of offended if someone said that to me and I think like that's a shining example. Like if you love Christmas as much as me, and I would honestly really appreciate someone being so honest with me, I don't want anyone to ever feel afraid about having those conversations with people. Because like you said, no one will mind. The best gift

you can give people is your love. And that's all anyone can ask for. It sounds lame, but it's so true. And like, Jess, I think I'm speaking on your behalf here, but I can't imagine if I gave you a gift and then later said like, oh, I'm really broke or I'm really struggling, how guilty you'd feel. You wouldn't feel good about that. Just don't do it. Don't stretch yourself beyond what you need to this Christmas. And to be honest, it's about the attention that you give people. But that's probably a really good place to leave it, Miss Jescarici. I think so. I hope you guys enjoyed our Christmas content. Come to Instagram if you want more, because I got told there was no more room on the podcast. So come to Instagram.

She's gone be spamming it on the internet. Absolutely. There's going to be lots of fun things happening over there where She's On The Money AUS. You can also join us on Facebook where she's on the money if you'd like to find us and join our group where hundreds of thousands of people share tips and tricks every single day. There's been lots of great Christmas chat going on. I love it. Jess, I think that is a beautiful place to leave it. So with that, I hope you have a beautiful festive season, however you are celebrating or not celebrating, and we will see you on Friday. Bye.

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