The Rachel Cruze Show - Don't Let Christmas Sleigh Your Budget

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

It’s November—which means Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner! Does that make you excited . . . or just overwhelmed? If you feel like the holidays are another reminder that you don’t have the time or money to make your holiday table perfect, make your Christmas tree Instagram-worthy, or even shop for presents, I created this episode just for you. In this episode of The Rachel Cruze Show, you’ll learn: Incredible insights from Emily Ley on how to make the most of your holidays with less. You guys, this interview is a must-watch for everyone. Why the Cruzes are saying no to buying toys this Christmas. How much most people spend on the holidays and how to keep boundaries around your Christmas budget.  Sponsors pay the producer of this show, The Lampo Group, LLC, advertising fees for mentioning their services or products during programing. Advertising fees are not based upon or otherwise tied to any product sale or business transacted between any consumer or sponsor. The following sponsors have paid for the programing you are viewing: RESOURCES: Zander Insurance The Contentment Journal Emily Ley’s website All Cash Christmas Printable   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We were just swiping four grand in a month, and we didn't even realize that. Amber and Barry, they are going to do Christmas debt-free for the first time ever. That was just feeling the stress of the debt. We realized that we had to do something. Author and entrepreneur Emily Lay, when we allow margin to exist in our lives, it will fill itself up with the good stuff. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Rachel Cruise Show podcast. I'm so glad that you're here, and it's November. I cannot believe that it's November, which means I've probably had my baby by now.

I mean, not probably. I better have had my baby by now. I'm recording a bunch of stuff before I go out on maternity leave. So it is kind of crazy to think that this is like the first podcast out now that I'm a mom of three. Like it's so crazy to think about. But November means baby for me and holidays for everyone else out there. Man, and it can be stressful when you think about the holidays because we think about what we have to spend money on. just trying to keep up with everyone and everyone's schedule. There's so much. So in this episode,

we're going to talk about holiday spending, and I'll give you the ways that the Cruz family, us, how we are saving money this year. I've also got some great tips on how to create your Christmas budgets. And also author and entrepreneur Emily Lay is on, and she's going to talk about how to make the most out of your holidays without going overboard. But first, I always think it's fascinating to hear from people just like you on what they're doing with their money. So let's hear from some people on how they're planning on spending their money over the holidays. Hey guys, Will Smith here. We're in downtown Nashville to find out what people are spending for the holidays. How much will you be spending for Christmas this year?

I'm trying to keep it under $500. Probably about $1,000 or so. Probably around $3,400, $14 to $1,500. $2,500. Around like $500 to $1,000. It's really dependent on how well I'm sitting financially at the time. Will any of your Christmas shopping be done with credit cards? Yes, some of it will be. The shopping will be on credit cards. No, we try to stay away from that. Probably so.

We just put everything on a credit card and paid in full every month. No, I'm going to try not to. Do you think most Americans will go into debt around the holiday season? I think that's pretty typical, yes. Yes, I do. Everyone wants to please everybody, so yes, everyone goes into debt. Yeah, I bet most people put it on a credit card and then pay it off throughout the year. I think a lot of people go into debts, and then...

use the following couple of months to recover. Have you ever done that? Maybe a year. I have in the past, but I'm trying to get debt-free so I can get ready for retirement. How much do you think most Americans will put on a credit card to pay for Christmas gifts? I think the average American might spend

about $2,000 to $3,000 on credit cards. A couple thousand dollars, at least. Three to $5,000 on Christmas on credit cards. A couple thousand, probably. Do you think people spend too much on Christmas gifts? I think yes, yeah. I think most Americans overspend on Christmas. Yes, we do.

Okay, now that we've heard from those people and how they're going to spend money this holiday season, let's look at how America does as a whole. Based on NRF's annual consumer spending survey, Americans planned on spending over $1,000 last year during the holidays. That's up 4.1% from 2017. Now, that spending falls and four major consequences. categories. Gifts for families, friends, and coworkers is $638. Non-gift holiday purchases like food and decorations, $215.

Other non-gift purchases for themselves and for their families, $155, and travel, $500. And you guys, 48%, almost half of consumers will go into debt to pay for all of this. For those who put holidays on the credit card, they are going to be paid. paying their debt off in 2.2 months. Now, that may not seem like a ton of time, but in those two months, Americans will rack up a collective $2.8 billion in interest. Yes, $2.8 billion in interest. This is where credit card companies are making pure profits off of your love for your family. I mean, how dare they? It's unbelievable. But you can get through the holiday season without going into debt and being stressed and worried about money. And here's the thing. To do this, it starts with

being content. And you have to start that now. Yes, having good money habits and boundaries to love your life now and at the new year. And this is something that will help you that I write about in my contentment journal. Yes. When you use this journal, I'll be walking with you on a journey towards being content. And because at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, Why are you spending all this money? Are you doing it to make other people happy? Or are you doing it to make yourself happy? The Contentment Journal will bring you back to the things that actually matter like you and your family.

And speaking of family, here's what my family is doing money-wise this Christmas. The cruises are scaling back. I don't know, you can call me the Grinch. I don't care. But I'm nesting, and I am getting crap out of our house. We are moving. We're having a baby. we are just in a crazy season right now in our life,

and I went up to the girls' playroom, Winston I did, and we threw out slash donated to Goodwill four trash bags of toys. Four! I mean, this is like toys they got from like fast food restaurants to stuff that they never play with,

to stuff that I'm like, you know what, you just don't need this. And parents, I'll tell you, if you perj at your playroom, just go ahead and hide the trash bags because Amelia saw them, started crying, and she was like, why are you giving away all my toys?

So I had a moment with her to tell her, you don't need all this stuff. You have too much stuff. And it's mommy and daddy's fault because we allowed all the plastic crap in the house. And number two, there are other little girls around the world that do not have these kind of things. And so we are going to give some of these toys away.

It was a little good giving conversation. Basically, I just wanted this stuff out. And I just thought, you know, they are just so happy with the minimal toys that they have and they actually play with them. And that's it. That's all they need. They don't need a ton of stuff. So for Christmas, Winston and I were like, maybe two gifts each, if they're lucky, but we're done. And then the grandparents are also the blessing slash problem to all the plastic crap in during the house. So we've had to tell our parents,

hey, don't buy them a bunch of stuff. Like, if you buy them something, like, let's get a gift card where we can actually get them clothes or get them new bedding, like get them stuff that they can use. Because we're done. We're done. So we are embracing the word no. this holiday season, for ourselves, too, by the way, but also for the girls. Like, mm-mm. And I say girls, there'll be a little boy here this Christmas, but he has no idea what's going on. He'll be like three months old, so it's fine. But I've realized, too, that different seasons of life causes your Christmas to look different. Like when Winston and I, we are dinks, dual-income, no kids, it was like, yeah, we'll have, we'll buy each other some great

gifts. Why not? But now, with three kids, we're like, no, no, no, things change. Your priorities change and that's okay, your Christmases are going to look different, and that is fine. So you have to figure out what's important for you and your family. And it's also important to think about life insurance. I can't stress enough how important this is for you and your spouse. During this holiday season, will you be setting your home alarm? Or will you be locking your car doors to protect those gifts you just bought at the mall? I bet you are. It's easy to get caught up and taking care of those day-to-day things and forget or put off something important like protecting your family's future by having life insurance. It will make sure that your family is taking care of financially.

Term life insurance is really inexpensive. You can secure your family for a fraction of what it costs to get whole life insurance. Winston and I use Zander insurance. During this busy holiday season, you might be thinking that you don't have time, but Zander makes it really easy. They walk with you through every step of the process, making sure that you and your family have exactly what they need. So go to zandr.com to get a quote today. All right, coming up next, I'm bringing on my friend Emily Lay, who just released a new book all about how to do more with less. Emily, thanks for coming back on. Thanks for having me.

So fun to have you here. Thank you. You've moved since I've seen you last Pensacola. I mean, you're just like all over the place. Big move. Yeah. It's a big move. So great.

We're glad to be there. Okay, so I feel like you're just like an expert in so many areas of just like organizing our lives, right? Thank you. You are. Like, that's what Emily Lay is known for. Yeah. Okay, so during this holiday season, I feel like a lot of people get very overwhelmed. And in your story, personally, you kind of hit this breaking point, this wall.

Yeah. And I just want to know a little bit about that because it caused you to write your new book, which we'll talk about in a second. It did. And, you know, I think a lot of times the holidays can be a catalyst for burnout where we overcommission. We do so many things. We pack our schedules. We often feel like we're missing out if we're not doing everything. And then we get to the new year and a lot of us want a big change. And that was me. The end of last year, I just hit a point where I said, I'm so tired. And I was seeing it in my children. I was even seeing it in our customers, our friends, just this underlying tone of everyone

feeling really tired. Like burned out and overwhelmed. And I, I, at that time, actually sat down to write this book and spent a good few weeks looking at my life and saying, what can I turn the noise down on? Our lives are just so crammed full and everything is so loud. And I just decided to look at things and say, what can I have less of to live a life that's more? Yeah, it's so good. So, so good. And so obviously the book, it's on sale now, which is amazing. It is. It's now. Where can people pick up the book? Everywhere books are sold. Okay. Everywhere. Guys, make sure to check this out. And you hit on so many topics. just in life.

Yeah. But you focus a lot on technology and social media, which I think is so fascinating. Okay, so with technology, you turn down the noise of that specifically. Okay, so give us some tips and things that you've done in that area that's helped you. Well, I started to realize that when I got off of social media,

I got off of social media for 30 days to write this book, and when I got off of it, I started to realize that social media and technology weren't necessarily my problem. My problem was my habit. of going to it and saying, I'm either bored or I'm really busy, I need a break, entertain me. Like, let me see something new, something new, something new. And that constant need for that noise, it wasn't healthy for me.

And I don't think it's healthy for a lot of people. And so I just started doing some really tactical things, like turning off every notification on your phone. Did you know you can do that? Like, you don't have to be alerted at all. I've had this conversation with so many people that are like, I've never really thought of it. And I hadn't either. So funny. Can I tell you? Like, I even, like, updated my weather app. Yes. This is such a silly example. Yeah. And it automatically turned on the notification. And it literally, like, would notify me like, it's about to rain. All the time. And it's just

like, you're, and I was like, oh my gosh, I have got to turn this off. But it's like, anything will notify you. Yes. Yes. So I turned all the notifications off. I started looking at noise in our home. Like, you know, do we constantly have the TV running in the background? Or, you know, when we're in the cars, they're just like loud music when people are trying to talk. and just looking at all of life and saying, how can we just like hit the brakes and turn down the noise a little bit so that we can really enjoy the good stuff?

Because we miss it when there's so much else going on. Yes. Modern life, right? Totally. So with technology, like, I want to know your life after you've done these things. And I hear this and I'm like, oh, that's so good. Like, if I implemented this in my life, like what does it feel like? Like, do you feel like, is there freedom?

Like, do you feel this weight almost lifted off? I feel like there's so much freedom in it. when we say, I'm going to pump the brakes and, like, take inventory and look around at everything being too loud, too busy, too fast pace, too much, there's so much freedom. And we don't have to live life that way. Yeah. I think modern technology and, you know, modern advances and all these ways that we've tried to make life better and easier, they've often made it a little bit more complicated. And we haven't taken the step back to say, whoa, I'm not just going to, you know, let these things into my life. I'm going to be proactive about technology, about social media,

about my own health and wellness, about getting rest and things like that, so that I can be the best version of me. Yes, that's so good. So social media, you've touched on this a little bit, but you went through kind of a social media purge. You went off of it for 30 days to write the book. And then you also went through and unfollowed a bunch of people, right? Like you were kind of picky and selective. Even friends. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so tell me about that. Like, what was your filter? What was your mindset when you were doing that? Well, I think because I've built a business on social media and I use it so much for our brand, you know, we would follow people we thought we had to, or I would follow accounts I felt like I needed to.

And, you know, slowly built up hundreds, if not thousands of people that I was allowing into my heart. And there's that verse about, guard your heart for it's the wellspring of life. I kept coming back to that and saying, I need to be careful with social media, especially with kids and having kids that are going to come up into it. exemplifying, you know, guard your heart in all these ways and only allow in what you want to pour out. And so I have followed so many different accounts, good accounts too. Sure. And just limited it to say, when I go to my phone and I'm looking at social media, how can I let it be a place of positivity to put in what I want to pour out?

And it's so freeing. But it takes stopping and saying, oh, I can do that. I don't have to follow a thousand people. And my personal Facebook, I also just had a ton of friends there and finally decided to set the rule and say, if you get a Christmas card from me, we'll be personal friends on Facebook. It's like, it's the litmus test, you know? I love that. I have my litmus test when I say like, oh, yeah, we're really good friends.

Right. But do I have their cell phone number? Okay, that's a good. Our time test, I'm like, do I have your cell phone number? If I have your cell phone number, I'll consider your friends. Absolutely. Oh, that's so good. But I love this whole approach, because you said it earlier, but it is true.

It's like you're being proactive about your life. We talk about being proactive with your money on here all the time by doing a budget, being purposeful with your spending. But with your time, technology, your social media, like, it can happen to you so quickly. And you look up and it's been a year, right? Or whatever it is. And you're like, wow, it's been a lot of time. A lot of time.

Where I haven't been the one in control. Right. Or it's been an hour and I've been scrolling through pictures of who knows what, you know? And have to people who we don't even know. We don't know. Right. I know. It's crazy.

It's so crazy. Okay. So, again, the holidays are here. Yeah. So I know this is a time for me. having little kids, and I'm an extrovert. So I'm like, I love all the parties. I love all the things.

But it is so exhausting. Trying to like do all the Santa meet and greets and you're doing the parades. I mean, there's so much to do. So what do you do? What's your advice to say, okay, how can we have less? It actually ends up having more because of that during the holiday season, just even with schedules. Well, I think it's twofold. I think before the holiday season starts, now is the perfect time to sit down and say,

what are the three things we want to do? What are the three memories that we want to make so that, you know, come January, we look back and say, I'm so glad we went and drove around and saw Christmas lights or we went and saw Santa or whatever it was. Also, I think personally, I've often looked at what's the biggest and the best and the flashiest, fun Christmas thing because my kids need it and we got to do it because we got to get the picture to post on a social media or whatever it is. Right. Right. But like, When I look back at my life with my kids who are eight and then I have two four-year-olds, when I look back at it now, my favorite holiday memories are baking cookies in the kitchen,

even if they're slice and bake, whatever, or decorating the Christmas tree together, or watching a Christmas movie, they aren't always the things that we feel like, oh, got to do that. You know, that's the big thing. Yes. But I think that's so true, I'm like, when it is almost more low-key, there's less stress. Way. Way less stress. You're way more present.

There's just more peace and quietness and more like control as a parent. Right. Control over your environment. And it happens in the margin, I feel like. One of the things I learned most through this kind of experiment that I did was that when we allow margin to exist in our lives, it will fill itself up. And it will fill itself up with the good stuff, you know, not the stress of getting all the things done doing all the things. I mean, I could talk about this for days because it was just life changing to say, hey, world, I'm not going to live the way you're telling me to. I don't have to. Yes. You know?

And your life is just so much more fulfilling. So much. I mean, it's a journey. It's definitely every day. Sure. I have to remind myself of and say, be flexible with it, but always have it in the back of your head that more isn't always better. Yes. You know? So good. Yeah. Well, you're fantastic. Thank you. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. So great. Again, you guys, when less becomes more, Emily Lay, make sure you check it out. How wasn't Emily great? I just loved chatting with her. Now, one of the most important parts of the holidays for you is having a Christmas budget. Yes, it's November. So if you haven't started one, do it today. Now you might be thinking, how do I do a Christmas budget? Well,

this is how you do it. First and foremost, decide on how much you can spend. And then make a list, just like Santa Claus, list out all the people you're going to buy a gift for, and then put a dollar amount next to each of their names. Finally, subtract the total minus all of those numbers, and hopefully you've ended with zero. If you have, then you have perfected a zero-based Christmas budget. Well done. Well done. Every dollar that you spend will be attached to someone's name,

just like the categories in a normal budget. And it's that simple. And I've also got an all-cash Christmas budget from every dollar to help you do this. So click the link and the show notes to get that for free. And don't forget, pay for every. everything with cash. Okay, coming up next, I'm bringing on Amber and Barry, and they are just a great couple because they are going to do Christmas debt-free for the first time ever. So I'm going to look at their budget with them, their monthly budget, and figure out their numbers and

say, okay, how can you do Christmas debt-free? So here's their story. We were just swiping four grand in a month, and we didn't even realize that we didn't budget ever, and we didn't plan. We didn't and we just spent what we needed to when we needed to. You just swipe it and you don't realize. And I wasn't looking at numbers. He was seeing them. Yeah, I was seeing them. That was just feeling the stress of the debt.

We realized that we had to do something. And so I thought, you know, we need to get a plan. And he was always, like, kind of pushed back, you know, like, I don't want someone or something telling me how to spend my money. I was more worried about, like, what I would be restricted in doing. Because I was a spender. She was a saver. And it took probably a couple years, maybe more, for him to finally, you know, hit that wall this summer and go, we need help.

I didn't want it to go out of control. I wanted to do something before something really bad happened. So we challenged ourselves for that month to cut our spending down. And in that month, we cut it in half. In about six weeks, seven weeks, we had paid just over $8,000. It was exciting. We never thought that would be possible. So this will be our first year sitting down.

Doing a Christmas budget. Doing the Christmas budget, yeah. So Christmas won't follow us anymore. When we swipe our debit card, it's going to be done. Well, thank you guys so much for coming and chatting with me about the Christmas budget. Yes, you're welcome. Okay, so I want to know, first and foremost, what made you guys say, okay, this Christmas, we're actually going to do a budget and not going to debt for Christmas.

That's one of the things that, you know, we needed to do. We wanted to be, you know, gazelle focused on this kind of stuff. Yeah, because y'all are paying off debt. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to interrupt here because he said gazelle focused. And some of you are like, what is he talking about? So listen, around Ramsey Solutions, we love our gazelles because it is a metaphor of being intense

and running this race of getting out of debt really, really well. It goes back to this metaphor of understanding that when a gazelle is being chased out in the wild, think Discovery Channel-esque people for a second. And the Cheetah is after the gazelle. The gazelle, it is life or death for the gazelle to get out because scripture says, when you have gotten into debt, do this. Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter. And so when you are intense and you are running as fast as you can, you're putting every amount of money, effort, emotion, everything behind this process. That is how you get out of debt. You are gazelle focused. You are gazelle intent. So I want all of you to be like that.

It's kind of like a reindeer in a way, like gazelles and reindeer is right? I mean, it kind of fits with the holiday spirit. But gazelle intensity, that's what we love. And it's perfect timing too. Yeah. Because we've just started to learn to budget and we're still in those ironing out stages. Yes. Okay.

So I love that this is a part of your journey because as you guys are working to pay off debt, you just did your first budget, your first household budget about two months ago, right? Yes. So how's that going? It's going good. Yeah. Wait, it takes about three months to kind of really get it going. So you're two months in.

Telling ourselves that. Yes. Yeah. So I always tell people when you do a budget for the first time, you feel like you got a raise. What would you say? True or false? Yeah. No, absolutely.

Yeah. It was definitely, you know, to see where we're telling it to go versus it's just flying out the window faster than you can even keep track of it, really. Absolutely. Okay. I love it. You guys are, like, doing so well. The fact that you're even budgeting and even getting on the strength, Getting out of debt is remarkable because most people aren't.

So this Christmas is going to be a little different because you guys are like, okay, we're not going into debt for this Christmas. Because in past you have, right? In the past, you've gone into debt. So tell me about past Christmases. Like, what did that look like? I stopped working a couple years ago. So before that, we had double income. And so we just spent and we never thought twice.

Credit card spent? Yes. Or you had the cash to do it. No, like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just swipe the credit card.

Yes. And so you guys would swipe everything with credit cards. And then when would you pay it off? What was kind of like... I'd strive to pay it off in January, but it ended up trickling down to February sometimes. Yep, yep, totally. So a few months after, yeah. And I feel like maybe that's what made us feel like we were doing okay because it wasn't following us all year.

Yep. When in fact it shouldn't follow us at all. Like we're learning new habits. Yes, yes. Okay, so Barry, you were the one in charge of like paying off the bills and all of that after Christmas. So what was that like? Like when January came and you knew, okay, this probably is a year that we won't be able to make the bill. Like, what did that feel like?

Well, when I seen the balance, I'm like, oh, that's a lot. And it's a lot more than I was expecting. So I would just kind of, you know, finagle my way through it. And if it didn't make it in January, I said, okay, fine. We'll just push it to February and hope it doesn't go into March. Okay, so I just want to interrupt right there because Amber and Barry, this is like a perfect picture, you guys, of what normal looks like. And they said, yeah, you know, we paid it off, you know, our credit card. you know, a few months later.

And that mindset, you guys, even just that, it's just mediocre, right? And like, that's normal in America. That's how people live their lives and their money. But if you want to see change, if you want to do something different, you have to be radical. As radical is saying, you know what, I'm not even going to have credit cards. I'm not even going to let this tempt me because, let's say you do pay it off every month. You know what? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter.

It's a mind shift that you have to have because when they made the shift and they actually said, okay, you know what, we're going to work the plan. We're going to do something different with a lot. money. We're not going to let debt control us. They paid off $8,000 in six weeks. And some of that, yeah, is mathematic, but it's also because they made a decision to do something different. So I don't want you guys to be normal. Like what they just explained was such a normal phrase that I hear from so many people. And I want you to be different. And different is going to not look normal, but being weird is totally okay. So I just had to interrupt to say that. But let's get back to the

interview. So did you feel like you were in control or was it a little isolated? knowing that she wasn't like a second brain helping. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it was very, no, I felt like I was more reactive to things. It was definitely not something. It was like, oh, I had a, like I had a plan and the plan failed. It wasn't like that at all. It was more like, okay, I'm just going to take whatever it comes.

And, you know, just, you know, just, I didn't really talk about it with her all that time, all that much. I would just try to, you know, make it work within, you know, myself. Right. So that way she didn't have to worry about it so much. Right. Like, I literally, like, we did that. the numbers, and I was blown away. You know, it was double what I thought it was.

The debt or the expenses, the debt, yeah. The debt, yeah. And so now that we've sat down, we know what it is, we've got a plan, we've got a budget, and it will only get better. Yeah. Like, we got this. And I do want to point out that it wasn't like you were intentionally hiding the debt. Oh, no. It just said it was just completely not communicated about it.

Like, it just was not talked about. So you kind of got budgeting a little bit. under your belt. So I was looking at last month's budget because you guys sent it to me. And as I was looking over it, I thought, really, you guys, for the most part, are very responsible with who you're spending. Like, I looked at most of your categories and I was like, okay, you know, there's not a ton that you have to cut because a lot of it is needs. Right. It's your insurance. It's your food. It's cars, you know, it's all that kind of thing. And so I did see debts in there and you guys are talking about working your way

out of that. You started a snowball. Yes. And so, because it's about 25% of your income is going to debt. So you're feeling those tainments for sure. And so Christmas this year may look a little different because you're not going in debt for it and you're being intentional. So as I was looking through, really the biggest things I saw was that you still had about $250 left to budget in your every dollar account, which was awesome. So again, giving every dollar a name and being purposeful is huge. So I'm like, okay, that's a great place. You could literally add Christmas line item and just drop that money right in. So the $250 that you have extra can totally go to Christmas. And then there were two areas in your lifestyle

that I think we're October specific. Yeah. So a $20 one, a $40 one, and then another $40. So then that's some you can throw it there. Yeah. So really, on average, you're about $350 that you can budget for Christmas. And you guys, I think that that's great. Because when you do it, you're going to name out, okay, here are all the people you list them out,

if you're going to buy for, and the dollar amounts next to each of those names. So who, just off the cuff, like, who are people you would buy Christmas gifts for normally? The two kids, obviously. Yeah. The kids, yeah. We gift for my sister and his brother. My mom has requested a gift. Sorry, mom.

So, and then my dad is usually, you know, it's never anything crazy. So that's encouraging from me here because I'm like, you can do that for $350. Like, you really could because I would say the spender, because I'm a spender like you. You said that earlier. I am too. So part of me was like, oh, you could still probably keep that $350 number into December as well. And that's $700 total. Right.

But I'm like, no, you don't need to. You really don't. And so I would so encourage you guys, if you can, challenge yourselves and say, okay, we're going to just take this $350 that we're going to get in November, and that's going to be it. And it's kind of a hard pill to swallow. But where you guys are with the debt, I would say, I would do that. That's exactly the goal I would make, and you just write it down. It's so easy. And it's not a lot of people.

No, not at all. Six people. Right. And say, okay, this Christmas, it's going to look a little different. And even prep the kids, because you guys have two kids. Yes. And their ages are 9 and 5. 9 and 5.

So sweet. They're adorable. I met them earlier. your daughter. I was like, give me a hug. She didn't. Right into your arms. She's so sweet, so sweet.

And so I don't like, you know, kids, that's still a great age. They're not like teenagers that are expectations. Yeah. Yeah, they're not. And even when I was home with the kids, we decided to do instead because they get so many gifts, and we had mentioned this earlier, is, you know, breaking it down into the four, the need want, read, and where. Yes, yes.

And so even though that wasn't budgeting, to me, it felt, kind of budgeting. Like there was a boundary. There was kind of this limit. Yeah, there was a limit. You know, it's just a great season of life for you guys to kind of edge this new habit in. And I think you can do it. Most family members, you know, are pretty encouraging with that.

We've been pretty vocal with everything. That's awesome. Like our open with our story on Facebook. Yes. So I think at this point everyone is pretty aware. Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much again for coming in and sharing your story. So huge.

Oh, this was such a fun episode. days, they're just, it's my favorite. It really is. Thanks to Emily Lay for coming on and Amber and Barry for sharing their story. Now, anything that we talked about in this episode, make sure to click the link in the show notes to get. And if you've not subscribed to the podcast, make sure you do that. And if the spirit leads, you can leave a review. All right, you guys, as always, make sure to take control of your money and create a life you love. So if you guys enjoyed this podcast, we have more from the Ramsey Network, like the Dave Ramsey Show. If you're looking for boring financial talk, you're in the wrong place. This is not your mother's 401k meeting.

This is life on the radio. And it's just downright entertaining. That's why there's about 14 million of you out there today. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. We're glad you're there. To hear full episodes, just search Dave Ramsey wherever you listen to podcast or go to Dave Ramsey.com.