Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #305| Stop Being the Holiday Hero, and Learn to Enjoy Spending Your Time and Money Without Overwhelm
Transcript
- 0:00Jen Smith: Everything all the time is trying to point us toward spending money.
- 0:10Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:17Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:22Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences.
- 0:27Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:34Michelle Gauthier: Hello, friend.
- 0:39Michelle Gauthier: It's time to start thinking about the holidays.
- 0:41Michelle Gauthier: And one of the things that we think about a lot on this podcast is the way that we spend our time and the intentionality around choosing where we put our time.
- 0:50Michelle Gauthier: And today's guest, Jen Smith of the Frugal Friends Podcast, is going to talk to us about how to do that similar thing with money, especially over the holidays.
- 1:00Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn how to stop chasing the perfect holiday and give yourself permission to let it be good enough, how to decide in advance where your money is worth spending and where you can let it go, and how to keep your holiday plan when a tempting trend shows up, like for example, matching Christmas PJs.
- 1:18Michelle Gauthier: So let's get to it.
- 1:20Michelle Gauthier: Thank you, Jen, for joining us today.
- 1:21Michelle Gauthier: I'm excited to talk to you.
- 1:23Michelle Gauthier: I know that you are a financial expert because you have your Frugal Friends podcast and also a book called Buy What You Love Without Going Broke.
- 1:32Michelle Gauthier: Tell us a little bit about your own story.
- 1:34Michelle Gauthier: How did you become such an expert in all things money?
- 1:37Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Michelle.
- 1:39Speaker 2: I was telling you before we recorded that I do know a thing or two about being overwhelmed.
- 1:44Speaker 2: And that started 10, 12 years ago when my husband and I got married.
- 1:49Speaker 2: We decided to pay off $78,000 of debt.
- 1:52Speaker 2: And we thought it was going to take us five years, but we did it with such fervor that I do not recommend.
- 1:58Speaker 2: Such fervor that we did it in two years.
- 2:00Speaker 2: It was student loan debt, both his and mine.
- 2:03Speaker 2: It was $78,000, mostly in student loan debt, a little bit of a car.
- 2:08Speaker 2: But that was my first introduction into financial habit.
- 2:13Speaker 2: I always knew what you're supposed to do and not supposed to do, quote unquote, with money.
- 2:18Speaker 2: But that was the first time that I was intentionally trying to act better with money in my day-to-day life.
- 2:26Speaker 2: And I really wanted to share that mindset shift with people.
- 2:31Speaker 2: So I started writing about the things that I had learned.
- 2:34Speaker 2: Started out with ways to save money and then it transformed into I wrote a book about no spend challenges because those really changed the way that I treat the things I spend my money on.
- 2:45Speaker 2: And that evolved into the Frugal Friends podcast that my co-host Jill and I have hosted for eight and a half years.
- 2:53Speaker 2: And now our financial planning firm, Pink Streets Financial.
- 2:56Speaker 2: Pink Streets?
- 2:57Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 2:58Speaker 2: So there's a neighborhood in St.
- 2:59Speaker 2: Petersburg.
- 3:00Speaker 2: They call it the Pink Streets.
- 3:02Speaker 2: And it's a little deep cut for our city that we love.
- 3:05Michelle Gauthier: I love it.
- 3:05Michelle Gauthier: It's a cute name, no matter, even if you don't know that history.
- 3:09Michelle Gauthier: That's great.
- 3:09Michelle Gauthier: And you've had a podcast for eight and a half years.
- 3:11Michelle Gauthier: That's one million years in terms of podcasts.
- 3:14Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
- 3:15Jen Smith: We are elderly.
- 3:16Jen Smith: Yeah.
- 3:17Jen Smith: Elderly podcasters.
- 3:18Michelle Gauthier: In the podcasting space.
- 3:19Michelle Gauthier: That's amazing.
- 3:20Michelle Gauthier: What motivated you at the time that you got married to get rid of that debt right away?
- 3:26Jen Smith: My husband said, I'm going to do this.
- 3:28Jen Smith: And you don't have to do it, but I'm going to do it.
- 3:30Jen Smith: And I was like, Oh, okay, here we go.
- 3:33Jen Smith: Yeah.
- 3:33Jen Smith: We'll get on board.
- 3:35Jen Smith: Yeah.
- 3:35Jen Smith: I was a little bit of a hard sell at first.
- 3:37Jen Smith: I won't say that I just jumped right on board, but I did eventually join in and in a shallow way it changed my life.
- 3:45Jen Smith: But it really did shift the way that I see values and the way I see identity and how we try to buy those things with our tangible purchases.
- 3:56Jen Smith: It shifted everything about how I interpret how people spend money.
- 4:02Michelle Gauthier: That's a big thing to happen from just going through, not just going through the process of paying off $78,000.
- 4:09Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so let's use your expertise to help our overwhelmed working woman audience here as it relates to the holidays.
- 4:17Michelle Gauthier: We talk a lot about the idea that overwhelm is caused by the invisible workload of women and all of the things that as women and especially moms, we have to remember who wants what for Christmas, what size do they wear, who's hosting for Thanksgiving, what's everybody bringing?
- 4:36Michelle Gauthier: All those kinds of things.
- 4:37Michelle Gauthier: During the holidays, our brains are already full with that invisible workload and all the actual visible things that we have to do that we can find on our calendars and all the extra time that's spent.
- 4:48Michelle Gauthier: And so I think money is just layered all around that.
- 4:53Michelle Gauthier: It shouldn't be an afterthought, but there's so much to do and so little brain space that I feel like sometimes the money can be an afterthought.
- 5:01Michelle Gauthier: And it seems like a lot of times, myself included, I definitely would go over what would be my normal budget without any real plan because my thinking is like, what's the holidays?
- 5:10Michelle Gauthier: And I just have to get all this stuff done and I'll figure that out later.
- 5:12Michelle Gauthier: So I'm sure that's not the approach that you recommend.
- 5:15Michelle Gauthier: What would you recommend?
- 5:17Michelle Gauthier: How should we be thinking about money as it relates to the holidays?
- 5:20Jen Smith: It's funny when we started paying off debt, it was in October of 2015.
- 5:25Jen Smith: So literally jumped right into the holidays.
- 5:29Jen Smith: And this is my first experience with trying to do the holidays in a financially conscious way.
- 5:34Jen Smith: And I gave myself shingles from scratch.
- 5:37Jen Smith: Yeah.
- 5:37Jen Smith: Not funny, but oh my gosh.
- 5:39Jen Smith: So it was pretty stressful.
- 5:40Jen Smith: Yeah.
- 5:41Jen Smith: First recommendation don't stress yourself out to the point of giving yourself a physical ailment.
- 5:48Jen Smith: Don't do that.
- 5:49Jen Smith: It is, on one hand, just a holiday.
- 5:52Jen Smith: If we don't do it perfectly, we get another shot, hopefully, next year.
- 5:57Jen Smith: On the other hand, it's just a holiday.
- 5:59Jen Smith: You don't have to make it the biggest, grandest, best, most memorable one for your family.
- 6:06Jen Smith: Saying whichever one of those you need at any given time can really help put things into perspective because everything all the time is trying to point us toward spending money.
- 6:18Michelle Gauthier: I like that.
- 6:19Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
- 6:19Michelle Gauthier: So the thought that I wrote down, because what we talk about a lot on this podcast is everything begins with the way that you're thinking about something.
- 6:26Michelle Gauthier: And I loved the idea that you gave us something to the effect of this doesn't have to be the most perfect holiday ever.
- 6:32Michelle Gauthier: As soon as you said that, I started writing it down because I feel like that's the message that we get every year.
- 6:37Michelle Gauthier: Like this is gonna be the one.
- 6:39Michelle Gauthier: This is gonna be the most special holiday ever.
- 6:43Michelle Gauthier: And just the pressure that comes along with even thinking along those lines is too much.
- 6:48Michelle Gauthier: This doesn't have to be the most perfect holiday ever.
- 6:50Michelle Gauthier: It can be great.
- 6:51Michelle Gauthier: It can be super great.
- 6:53Michelle Gauthier: And then taking the action from that place of deciding where do I want to spend money and where don't I want to spend money?
- 7:01Michelle Gauthier: What are some places that you just would not spend money?
- 7:05Jen Smith: So for me, I'm a bit of a minimalist with decor.
- 7:09Jen Smith: You should probably notice not a lot of decor on the wall behind me.
- 7:13Jen Smith: I do so many interviews and I show up and everybody has these beautiful backgrounds, like you do.
- 7:18Jen Smith: And I'm like, I really gotta get me one of those, but I can't bring myself to buy a lot of decor for things.
- 7:25Jen Smith: And so for Christmas, I have these pieces that I have literally used since college.
- 7:31Jen Smith: They are at this point kind of like my personal heirlooms.
- 7:35Jen Smith: And that's made them special.
- 7:37Jen Smith: That has become something that I've cherished and realized the more you have of something, the less special it becomes.
- 7:45Jen Smith: And so if you want to create special moments, if you want your family, your kids to value things, the less of it you have, the more valuable it becomes.
- 7:56Jen Smith: And I've used that same philosophy in planning great, quote unquote, great Christmases for my family.
- 8:02Jen Smith: Because for me, the most memorable Christmases I have are kind of the wonky ones.
- 8:07Jen Smith: They were like accidentally memorable and it was so beautiful.
- 8:11Jen Smith: So creating moments for accidental memories.
- 8:15Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, that totally makes sense.
- 8:17Michelle Gauthier: I think your point is good though about the decor because that could be somebody's most favorite thing, and that's something that they really enjoy.
- 8:25Michelle Gauthier: But for you, it doesn't really bring you any joy.
- 8:28Michelle Gauthier: So why waste your time, effort, and money, all those things, to have that?
- 8:33Michelle Gauthier: So, what is a place where you do spend where you might say you indulge and spend more money than maybe someone else would?
- 8:42Jen Smith: For me, I love relationships around the holidays.
- 8:45Jen Smith: And so it's really important for me to be around people.
- 8:48Jen Smith: If you do it one way, it can be very expensive.
- 8:52Jen Smith: But I love to bring people into my home and throw just a holiday hangout.
- 8:58Jen Smith: And I will buy most of the food and say, Oh, you can bring something if you want to bake or cook, but there's so much already going on in our lives.
- 9:07Jen Smith: If you don't, that's totally fine.
- 9:09Jen Smith: I will put some money into having a signature cocktail and having snackies.
- 9:15Jen Smith: I'm not creating a whole dinnerscape like you might see on social media, but just creating a place for friends to connect.
- 9:24Jen Smith: And we play this game that we have that's like a common thread at our parties between me and my friends that we do a bracket for last year.
- 9:33Jen Smith: We did second best Christmas song, a March Madness style bracket with all these Christmas songs because we all know Mariah Carey's number one.
- 9:42Michelle Gauthier: Already heard it once, already heard it once and we're recording this at the very beginning of November.
- 9:47Jen Smith: Yeah.
- 9:47Jen Smith: So this was a debate for the second best Christmas song, and people had opinions and it created great year-long inside jokes.
- 9:56Jen Smith: And so stuff like that.
- 9:57Jen Smith: The memorable part did not cost any money.
- 10:01Jen Smith: Yeah, but the stuff that cost money just elevated it and made it a little bit better.
- 10:07Michelle Gauthier: I love that.
- 10:07Michelle Gauthier: That is such a fun idea.
- 10:09Michelle Gauthier: We've got the idea of thinking about it differently, making a plan about what really matters to our family or doesn't matter to our family.
- 10:18Michelle Gauthier: Like, where are we just not gonna spend any money and where are we gonna spend money?
- 10:23Michelle Gauthier: And then the last thing you said, which I think is the probably the most important part, is actually doing it.
- 10:27Michelle Gauthier: How do we make these plans sticky?
- 10:30Michelle Gauthier: How do we say, I'm not gonna spend any money?
- 10:33Michelle Gauthier: Let me think of an example for my family of something that I'm just not gonna spend any money on this year.
- 10:38Michelle Gauthier: Okay, it just came to me.
- 10:40Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes I buy us all matching Christmas pajamas.
- 10:43Michelle Gauthier: And I just was looking last night and I thought, right now they're like $90 a person.
- 10:49Michelle Gauthier: And having very Christmas specific pajamas, are we just gonna wear them one or two times?
- 10:56Michelle Gauthier: And would that money be better used, either just sitting in our bank account or used for something else?
- 11:02Michelle Gauthier: Maybe a great hoodie that you could wear all winter long or something.
- 11:05Michelle Gauthier: So let's just say that I'm like Christmas pajamas are out, and then I go to the store and Gap's having 40% off on friends and family.
- 11:11Michelle Gauthier: I'm like, I should just do it.
- 11:13Michelle Gauthier: So, what's your advice around really sticking to your financial plans?
- 11:17Jen Smith: Christmas jammies have tempted me every season.
- 11:20Jen Smith: They're just so cute.
- 11:22Jen Smith: I know.
- 11:22Jen Smith: I start with absolutely I hate one-time use clothing.
- 11:26Jen Smith: It's why I don't wear costumes at Halloween.
- 11:29Jen Smith: I love looking at other people doing it, but I cannot bring myself to.
- 11:33Jen Smith: But every Christmas I have this thought run in my head, oh, maybe we should do matching pajamas.
- 11:38Jen Smith: That's adorable.
- 11:39Jen Smith: And that would make us look like a very fun family.
- 11:42Jen Smith: If we took a picture of it and posted it on Instagram or Facebook, people would think that, oh, we're very happy this year.
- 11:49Jen Smith: Look at the Smith.
- 11:50Jen Smith: They know what they're doing.
- 11:52Jen Smith: Yes.
- 11:53Jen Smith: A hundred percent.
- 11:54Jen Smith: I think the reason I haven't done it for is this A, my anger against single-use items of clothes, but also knowing that they're not gonna remember it and that it will be more hassle to get them to wear what I want, then it will probably be joyful for me to see them in it.
- 12:13Jen Smith: It's really just for a picture.
- 12:15Jen Smith: And the picture is gonna be special regardless of what they're wearing.
- 12:19Jen Smith: So coming back to this, like it's just one year, it's just Christmas.
- 12:24Jen Smith: But also, it's just Christmas.
- 12:26Jen Smith: If you don't do all the things this year, you're gonna be fine.
- 12:29Jen Smith: And if one year you do decide to get the matching pajamas, then that's okay.
- 12:34Jen Smith: Then you did it.
- 12:35Jen Smith: And that's gonna be an awesome picture that you cherish for the rest of your life.
- 12:40Jen Smith: But how many of those pictures do you need?
- 12:43Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
- 12:43Michelle Gauthier: So it sounds like you're saying really just go back to the values-based decisions that you've made and stick with your values.
- 12:50Jen Smith: Yeah, and there's always a radical middle too.
- 12:52Jen Smith: Maybe it's not the whole family in the Christmas pajamas that are trending on social media.
- 12:57Jen Smith: Maybe it's just the kids getting matching pajamas that are kind of holiday.
- 13:03Jen Smith: I think I did blue clad bottoms and the blue shirts.
- 13:07Jen Smith: It's just getting something that's matching, but not exclusive to Christmas.
- 13:11Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, perfect.
- 13:12Michelle Gauthier: I love it.
- 13:13Michelle Gauthier: Okay, I have two questions for you that are unrelated to what we're talking about that I ask every guest on the show.
- 13:19Michelle Gauthier: The first one of those is what is a rule that you have for yourself that you very rarely break?
- 13:25Jen Smith: I actually looked at this question earlier and had a really, I had a really great answer.
- 13:28Jen Smith: I just remembered it.
- 13:29Jen Smith: I don't get my takeout delivered.
- 13:32Jen Smith: If I'm ordering takeout, if I'm not gonna cook, I'm gonna pick it up myself.
- 13:36Jen Smith: I'm gonna add that barrier to entry.
- 13:38Jen Smith: So if I want it, I have to really want it.
- 13:41Jen Smith: But I've stacked up enough pantry and fridge staples to where if I'm just too lazy to go get it myself, I have quick meals that I can make.
- 13:51Michelle Gauthier: But if you know, oh my gosh, if I knew I had to go pick it up, that would really cut down.
- 13:56Jen Smith: That's my unreasonable barrier to entry.
- 13:59Jen Smith: We really do have to be creating so much inconvenience for ourselves in order to avoid spending money.
- 14:06Michelle Gauthier: Yes, yes, that's great.
- 14:08Michelle Gauthier: I love that.
- 14:08Michelle Gauthier: That's a great tip.
- 14:09Michelle Gauthier: And then the second one is what's something that you're just loving right now, unrelated to work, but just something in life that you're loving right now.
- 14:17Jen Smith: We just started playing Pokemon Go with my seven-year-old who loves cool.
- 14:21Michelle Gauthier: I don't know what that is.
- 14:22Michelle Gauthier: Tell me.
- 14:23Jen Smith: Okay, Pokemon Go is a phone game, but it requires that you have to be outside and you have to be walking in order to play it.
- 14:32Jen Smith: And then there are some higher level stuff that you actually have to be around other people also playing it.
- 14:38Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
- 14:38Jen Smith: So I love all three of those aspects.
- 14:40Jen Smith: And so my seven-year-old is into Pokemon.
- 14:43Jen Smith: My husband and I actually played the game in 2016, shortly after we got married.
- 14:48Michelle Gauthier: And I remember that when that was like a new thing.
- 14:51Michelle Gauthier: Yes.
- 14:51Jen Smith: And I have not played since 2016.
- 14:54Jen Smith: So I picked it back up this year and have been playing with me, my husband, and my seven-year-old.
- 15:00Jen Smith: And then sometimes I'll give my phone to my three-year-old and let him play on my account.
- 15:04Jen Smith: So fun.
- 15:05Jen Smith: And that sounds fun.
- 15:06Michelle Gauthier: That's just a fun, good, clean family fun.
- 15:09Michelle Gauthier: I love it.
- 15:10Michelle Gauthier: That sounds awesome.
- 15:11Michelle Gauthier: That's that's awesome.
- 15:13Michelle Gauthier: Okay, great.
- 15:14Michelle Gauthier: If people want to learn more tips from you or talk with you, how do they reach you?
- 15:20Jen Smith: Where can they find you?
- 15:21Jen Smith: We have episodes of Frugal Friends Podcasts come out twice a week, every week.
- 15:25Jen Smith: And that's wherever you listen to podcasts and also on YouTube.
- 15:28Jen Smith: We also offer financial planning services, one time fee, no assets under management, no subscriptions.
- 15:35Jen Smith: And that's at pinkstreetsfinancial.com.
- 15:38Jen Smith: And we have an app for people who aren't ready for financial planning.
- 15:42Jen Smith: It's a three-month coaching app to help you get better spending habits with little daily video lessons and activities just right in the palm of your hand to help you with those real-time spending decisions.
- 15:54Jen Smith: And that's frugalfriendspodcast.com slash.
- 15:57Michelle Gauthier: Okay, I love it.
- 15:58Michelle Gauthier: That's so great.
- 15:59Michelle Gauthier: How many podcast episodes must you have twice a week for eight and a half years?
- 16:04Michelle Gauthier: Are you in the thousands?
- 16:06Jen Smith: We weren't always twice a week, but we just recorded episode 666.
- 16:11Jen Smith: Oh my gosh.
- 16:14Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
- 16:15Michelle Gauthier: That's awesome.
- 16:16Michelle Gauthier: I love it.
- 16:17Michelle Gauthier: I love it.
- 16:18Michelle Gauthier: Thank you so much for being a guest and helping us just be more intentional and thinking about how we spend our precious resources of time and money over the holidays while still maximizing the fund.
- 16:31Michelle Gauthier: I really appreciate that.
- 16:32Michelle Gauthier: Thank you so much for having me.
- 16:34Michelle Gauthier: Before we wrap up today, this conversation really connected to something that I believe in deeply, which is do less.
- 16:40Michelle Gauthier: Do less more intentionally.
- 16:43Michelle Gauthier: That is one of the biggest steps to get out of overwhelm.
- 16:47Michelle Gauthier: I am getting ready to launch the Overwhelm to Calm Club, which is a year-long group coaching that starts in 2027, but I'm going to open registration on Black Friday.
- 16:59Michelle Gauthier: This group is for women who feel consistently overwhelmed and want to stop feeling that way in 2027.
- 17:07Michelle Gauthier: We will work on planning goals, focusing on wins.
- 17:11Michelle Gauthier: You will learn lessons about how to stop feeling overwhelmed.
- 17:15Michelle Gauthier: You'll learn to say no, stop people pleasing, prioritize yourself.
- 17:19Michelle Gauthier: All the tools that I teach to my one-on-one clients in a group setting.
- 17:27Michelle Gauthier: If you feel like this might be of interest to you, join the interest list at the link in these show notes.
- 17:32Michelle Gauthier: That way you'll be the first one to know because when I sell it on Black Friday, it's going to be for the lowest price it will ever be.
- 17:38Michelle Gauthier: So if you're thinking about it, Black Friday is the day to buy.com.
- 17:55Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.