​The holiday season is here!  Are you prepared?
 
Are you thinking about all of the shopping that you need to do or have you completed most of it already?  Do you know how you will pay for all of the expenses that are a part of every holiday season?  What is your financial strategy?  Do you have one?
 
Do you belong to a Christmas Savings Club and set aside money throughout the year or do you head to your local credit union to apply for a loan to cover your holiday expenses?  Your answer says a lot about how you manage your finances.  While there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer, one approach is clearly going to set you up for a more satisfying holiday experience.
 
When you save money for the holidays, you are more prepared for the unexpected, you pay less for your purchases, and you are better able to make decisions on your terms within your time frames.  With your money in hand, you will be ready if a sale pops up in August.  You can typically pace your holiday shopping over any period of time that works for you and you will have more choices because of the flexibility that you created for yourself.
 
When you borrow money to finance the holidays, your choices are more limited, your purchases are more expensive, and you are more subject to someone else’s terms and conditions.  The second you borrow money, you begin to pay for the use of those funds.  The interest that you owe automatically increases the price of the purchases that you make meaning that your funds will not go as far.  You probably won’t have as wide of a selection to choose from because you will be shopping at the latter end of the season and the time that you make available to shop will be subject to shipping restrictions, increased postage and handling costs, and/or crowded stores and the hours they choose to be open.
 
This is not a “have or have not” discussion.  Some people may make themselves believe that their financial situation dictates that they have to borrow to enjoy a nice holiday season.  Not true.  Whether you pay for your holiday shopping with funds that you have saved or funds that you have borrowed boils down to your ability to plan effectively and to use a little will power when necessary.
 
My beloved mother-in-law is a great example of this point.  She raised five children and she worked hard her entire life.  She wasn’t needy in the sense that she made sure that there was food to eat and that her family was clothed, but she was not financially comfortable either.  She had to forego many of the finer material things that many of us strive to accumulate as she strove to make ends meet.
 
Whatever she had or didn’t have, however, was secondary to her love of Christmas and her determination to make sure that she would provide a wonderful holiday experience for her family no matter what her financial circumstances happened to be.
 
At the start of each year, she would begin saving money from each and every paycheck.  Her funds would slowly start to accumulate.  She had an established limit for how much she could afford to save and then spend on each of her children and grandchildren.  As the year would progress, she would be on the lookout for sales so that she could make her funds stretch as far as possible.
 
She always seemed to know what she wanted to buy with little or no help from anyone else and she always found a way to get the absolute maximum from the funds that she had.  She found a way to let each family member know that she had been thinking about them throughout the year and she demonstrated it through the gifts that she provided.
 
She would come up with her own unique ideas and would remember the small, but really important details about what her kids and grandkids liked so that she could personalize her gifts for each recipient.
 
These presents were never extravagant, but when Christmas arrived the entire front room of her house was filled, seemingly to the ceiling, with something for everyone. 
 
We all know, or we should anyway, that the holiday spirit cannot be measured by the quantity of gifts that you give or receive.  It cannot be measured by anything that is tangible or able to be purchased.
 
In our family, the holiday spirit was on display through one woman’s determination to create a memorable experience for her family every year, her unbridled enthusiasm for Christmas, and her selfless devotion to each of us.  Her love of Christmas and the holidays was infectious and it had a tremendous positive influence on us.  The gifts were wonderful, but just a part of the joy that she would create and the fun that we would have.
 
The bottom line is that she did what she needed to do to fulfill her dream of what she wanted Christmas to be like for her family.  It was a goal that was personal to her and she made it a point to dedicate herself to it year after year.
 
Whether or not your financial decisions are at all impacted by the holidays, there is something for all of us to learn from this example.  The status of your financial situation should not be measured by the amount of money you have or don’t have, but rather the decisions that you make and the actions that you take to align your finances with your personal goals and financial objectives.
 
We also know that money cannot buy you happiness, but when you manage it effectively, you can at least remove financial worries from your list of concerns so that you can concentrate on other, more important things.
 
If you’re lucky, you have your own version of my mother-in-law in your family.  If not, maybe you can be the one who leads by example.  You may even find a little more holiday spirit along the way!

​This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.

​Medium:         The movie “Animal House”
Line(s):            Bluto:  What?  Over?  Did you say over?  Nothing is over until we decide it is!  Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
 
A classic.  This scene also produced another famous line from Bluto, “Seven years of college down the drain!”

The great thing about your goals and how you define success, is that they are uniquely yours to create and subscribe to. 

The balance and harmony that you seek in your life are yours to develop and you are the only one who gets to determine when you get there and what you will do once you are there.
 
You have the tools to make your decisions in a guilt free environment, without self-imposed limitations.  You are free to pursue your own personal perfection while embracing all of your imperfections.  You have strengthened your resolve so you can proceed forward without worrying about being knocked off your path.  If someone or something tries to get in your way, you know exactly what your options are.
 
You have so much momentum and so many things going for you, success should be the last thing that you worry about.  The only thing left for you to do is to go out and achieve your potential.
 
 This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.

From The Serial Decision Maker On Introspection:

Today is the only day that you have to reflect on, learn from, and build upon yesterday.

Decision Points are part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.

When you are in pursuit of a goal, are you engaged or stressed?  How you answer that question will say a lot about how much you enjoy your life and how you will rate your overall happiness.
 
When you actively and consistently set goals, whether they are financial in nature or otherwise, there is no doubt that your increased awareness will also increase the number of things for you to think about and potentially worry about.  The additional worry often times will lead you to look forward to the end of the pursuit, or the achievement of your goal.  There is nothing wrong with this, unless that anticipation completely overshadows the value of the process itself or what is sometimes referred to as “the thrill of the chase.”
 
If you are an accomplished goal setter, you already understand the importance of goals and the vital role they play in the forward progress of your life and the realization of your ambitions.  If you know how to set goals and why they are important, you will likely achieve your goals as well.  Having an understanding of the importance of goals and their role in the quality of your life, however, does not directly translate into an appreciation for the pursuit of those goals.
 
If you are someone who is constantly and solely focused on the end result, you may be devaluing an equally important part of the process, which is the pursuit of that result and the corresponding journey you will take to get there.
 
Results are great, but the majority of your learning and the experiences that you gain in your lifetime actually take place along the path that you travel as you move toward those results.  In fact, most of your life is spent in the pursuit stage of your goals and dreams, not in the actual end result of those pursuits.
 
If you find yourself wishing that your work day was over, is it possible that you will miss out on a positive experience or a learning opportunity because you are not engaged in the moment?  If you are worried about the outcome of an event or process, might you be less effective in influencing that outcome because you are not focused on the present?
 
As great as it is to reach a successful conclusion, much of the joy to be derived from reaching that conclusion is in the work and the effort that you put forth to reach it.  Without the value that you derive from the work that you do, your results (even if they are successful ones) will be hollow and not as meaningful to you or your development as a person.
 
Let’s use my golf game as an example.  I am not a good golfer, but I do take the game seriously and I am just as competitive on the golf course as I am everywhere else.  I am generally aware of my strengths and weaknesses on the course and what my ability will allow me to do or not do.
 
Knowing these things also helps me to distinguish between a lucky shot and a skillful shot.  Each may end up in the same result on the scorecard, but I can tell you that I always feel better about the shot that I meant to hit and practiced hitting than I do about the lucky shot that happened to end up in the right place.
 
On the rare occasion that I achieve the result I was looking for, I am aware of the work that I did to get there and the execution that was needed on my part to achieve it.  It is a result that I can build upon because I know what I did and why I did it.  A lucky shot doesn’t tell me anything other than I may be just as unlucky on my next shot as I was lucky on this one.
 
Everyone needs something to look forward to, whether it is the purchase you can finally make after saving your money or the retirement you will be able to thoroughly enjoy after a lifetime of hard work.  A little dash of luck and good fortune is always a welcome assist in getting you to where you would like to be, but if you don’t enjoy the process that takes you there, you will miss out on an awful lot of life’s experiences and lessons.
 
If your first thought upon arriving at work every day is that you are another day closer to retirement, you will diminish the value of the work that you do.  While there is nothing wrong with thinking about your ultimate goal of not having to work one day, the work that you do today should be important enough to you to focus on the present; for you to learn as much as possible and for you to have as much positive influence on the course of your life and on those around you as you can.
 
From a financial perspective, you certainly want to properly prepare for your retirement by saving and investing what you will need to enjoy your life when you are no longer earning a paycheck.
 
If you don’t pay any attention to what your financial needs will be when you retire, you are either not going to be able to retire or your retirement will be vastly different than what you hoped it would be.  Conversely, if you spend every day thinking about how much you have to save for the future, you may have plenty of money when you stop working, but you will miss the fun of the present.  You will likely deprive yourself from enjoying the money that you make while you are working because you are solely focused on the future.
 
If, however, you fully appreciate the work that you are doing and the progress that you are making toward the achievement of all of your financial goals, you will be much more likely to find that balance between preparing for the future and enjoying today.
 
If you can constantly learn from your past and keep an eye on your future, while making sure that you live in the moment; you’ll be right where you need to be most of the time.

This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.