Episode 456: How to Manage Holiday Money Anxiety

Journey To Launch

Jamila Souffrant

Finances, Business, Realestateinvesting, Entrepreneurship, Earlyretirement, Investing, Budgeting, Wealth

5 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this week's solo episode, I'm diving into something many of us feel, but don't always say out loud holiday money anxiety. This season can be full of joy, nostalgia, and family connection, but it can also bring up guilt, pressure, overspending, and emotional triggers that hit our wallets hard. So today, I'm sharing honest reflections on the expectations we carry, the emotional weight of holiday giving, and how I personally navigate the overwhelm of gifting, family obligations, and wanting to "do enough" without draining my finances or my energy.

I walk you through practical strategies for shifting your mindset, breaking old patterns, and giving yourself permission to rethink how you show up this season.

In this episode, I discuss:

Guilt-free gifting: How to focus on intention instead of price tags, and ways to simplify gifts especially for kids who may value the moment more than the item itself.
Setting family & personal boundaries: What to say when you want to keep things simple, stick to a budget, or opt out without shame.
Overspending triggers: Why boredom, stress, nostalgia, and scarcity mindset push us to buy more and how to create friction to avoid impulse purchases.
Reframing the season: How to shift from "stuff" to connection, small rituals, meaning, and presence.
Planning ahead for next year: Using what you spent this season to set realistic expectations and savings goals for the future.

Other related blog posts/links mentioned in this episode:

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Talking to your family members and friends, setting boundaries, being up front for the people who care about you, they should understand and be okay with it.
0:14.0	Ultimately, you have to protect your finances around this time of a year.
0:20.0	Else you'll be the one dealing with the hangover
0:22.5	when it comes to New Year's and trying to pay back the debt you're getting into.
0:29.4	Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast with your host, Jamila Sufran, as a money expert who walks her talk.
0:36.7	She helps brave journeyers like you, get out of
0:39.4	debt, save, invest, and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial
0:46.1	freedom in five, four, three, two, one. If you want the episode show notes for this episode, go to journey to launch.com or click the
1:02.2	description of wherever you're listening to this episode. In the show notes, you'll get the
1:07.0	transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned, and so much more.
1:12.5	Also, whether you are an OG journeyer or brand new to the podcast, I've created a free
1:17.8	jumpstart guide to help you on your financial freedom journey. It includes the top
1:22.7	episodes to listen to, stages to go through to reach financial freedom, resources, and so much more.
1:28.0	You can go to journey tolaunch.com slash jumpstart to get your guide right now.
1:33.9	Okay, let's hop into the episode.
1:37.6	Hey, hey, hey, journeyers.
1:39.3	Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast.
1:41.3	I'm your host, Jamila Sue Frant.
1:44.0	And I'm so glad you're spending time with me
1:46.4	listening in. Hope you are doing well. I am going to be talking about something relevant to this time
1:55.0	of year, if you're listening to this in real time. And that is all about managing holiday money anxiety and how to just navigate
2:06.3	all the feelings and all the demands are in our pockets and wallets as we are entering and fully
	...

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