Ask Jesse: How to Launder Money... for Christmas?!
The Jesse Mecham Show
YNAB
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 November 2021
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jesse answers a reader trying to save for a surprise Christmas present for his significant other, but also trying to be faithful to his YNAB budget. Jesse shares a few tricks and some "creative accounting" within YNAB to help you save up for Christmas gifts without spoiling the surprise or the budget.
Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, Wine Embers. My name is Jesse McKimmon. This is another episode of the Wine Am |
| 0:08.6 | podcast where we teach you four rules to help you stop if you paycheck to paycheck, get |
| 0:12.8 | out of debt and save more money. Today, though, we're going to take a little bit of a different |
| 0:16.8 | turn. Christmas is rapidly approaching. The holiday spending is upon us. And if you've been |
| 0:23.1 | doing Wine Am, and you've been doing it well, you've been doing it right, then you've been |
| 0:26.8 | dutifully paying that holiday bill every single month. But do yourself instead of paying for |
| 0:31.8 | the Christmas of 2020. That's in the past completely and always and forever. And you've been |
| 0:36.7 | paying that 2021 Christmas bill dutifully each paycheck. So you have a little bit of a problem, |
| 0:43.4 | though. You have all this cash that's in the budget. And you have a significant other. And |
| 0:47.7 | y'all are sharing that budget. And visibility is at a maximum in the sense that both partners can |
| 0:53.0 | see everything. They can see every payee. They can see every memo. They can see what the other |
| 0:57.7 | is doing. And maybe, maybe it's time that you, you know, you launder a little of money. That's |
| 1:04.1 | exactly what you're going to have to do if you want to have it be a Christmas of surprise instead |
| 1:08.9 | of just, hey, thanks for logging that transaction for me and things in advance for that sweet, sweet gift. |
| 1:15.1 | So a couple ideas on how to launder money like a criminal, but for Christmas. A couple things. |
| 1:21.8 | One is you can just completely fake the transaction data. So you don't have to put in the |
| 1:29.9 | accurate payee. You, you can just fake it. You just write lies all in every one of those transactions. |
| 1:36.4 | And that works well. But if you're connected directly to the bank, then it does not. And the |
| 1:43.0 | bank transaction might come in. And then your spouse sees it and knows, aha, you're getting me that |
| 1:47.8 | waffle maker, you, you devil. So you can't do that necessarily without recognizing that you |
| 1:55.0 | got to maybe turn direct import off. And maybe you don't want to turn direct import off. Another thing |
| 1:59.8 | you can do is just make a big ol' cash withdrawal from the budget for Christmas. And then you |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from YNAB, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of YNAB and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.