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Middle aged man giving wife a small box wrapped in red ribbon containing an expensive holiday gift

Avoiding the Holiday Hangover

Ah, the holiday season. As soon as Thanksgiving ends you can’t go anywhere without hearing the familiar sound of classic carols and smelling a faint pine scent wafting from some undisclosed location. Is it a pine scented candle, or is it a real pine tree? Nobody knows and nobody cares because it’s Christmas time. All of this is perfectly normal and magical (according to every Hallmark movie ever made, so it has to be true).
Retailers love it, and airports thrive on it this time of year. It’s the “but it’s the holidays!” feeling. And that’s 100% correct - it is the holiday season. But January always comes around, and it’s more of a “…it was the holidays…right?...” feeling when you check out the aftermath in your account.

This is what we like to call “The Holiday Hangover.” The spending is certainly fun in the moment, but eventually it’s going to hit you like a ton of bricks. Unless you *shudder* budget. Yup, I used that hated, overused word. We all know we should probably save ahead of time, but for whatever reason it’s one of those things we always put off. But what if it was easy? Like, automatic easy?

I’m talking automatic transfers - monthly, weekly, biweekly - whatever works for you. Every cent gets put into a separate account that ONLY gets used for the holidays. Maybe that means you have to bluntly label it “DO NOT TOUCH THIS ACCOUNT BEFORE DECEMBER.” Or maybe you even disconnect that account from Digital Banking so it takes more work to use the cash. Having to call in or physically enter a branch might make you think twice before moving that money around…

We won’t tell you what to choose, because it’s all about what’s going to work for you. Believe it or not, there’s more than one way to get there.

I know the holiday season is already in full swing, so saving ahead for this year is probably off the table. But the holidays do come every year without fail. It’s not too early to make a New Year’s resolution, right?

Plus, who knows… if you come see us, we might even light a pine scented candle for you.



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