Keeping Christmas Stress-Free with Crystal Paine

You can get biblical financial wisdom delivered to your inbox each week absolutely free. Articles, videos, podcasts, and special offers on biblical resources. Over 60,000 people receive our free weekly wisdom email, and you can too. Create your free Faithful account by going to faithful.com and click sign up to begin receiving weekly wisdom in your inbox. Christmas is six weeks away and some folks may already be feeling the stress. Hi, I'm Rob West.

The holidays should be a time of spiritual reflection and reconnection with family and friends, but too often we lose sight of that in the quest for perfection. Crystal Pain is here to help us stay focused on the reason for the season. And then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, our guest Crystal Pain is the brains behind the popular website moneysavingmom.com, which is loaded with ways to make your life less stressful all year round. Be sure you check it out. Crystal, great to have you back.

Thanks so much for having me again. You know, one of the things you always tell folks is that having a Christmas budget is essential. So how might that take some of the stress out of this holiday season? I know a lot of people are scared of budgeting, but I really encourage you when you have a budget, it gives you freedom. You know how much you have to spend and you don't have to worry about going into debt or spending more than you have. And then you know that you're going to start the new year in great financial shape instead of in bad financial shape.

Oh, that's so good. Budgets equal freedom. Think of it as the guardrails. They keep you on the road, keep you protected, and that's certainly true of your Christmas budget.

All right, so let's get practical. What goes into the Christmas budget? How do you draw one up? So first off, you need to decide how much money you have to work with. And then based upon that, who will you buy for? You can consider making a simple spreadsheet or list with your budget. Who are you buying for? How much you have to spend for each person and then keep a running list as you spend so you can track it. I also think this allows you to really question, OK, do I need to pare back?

Do I need to simplify? Are we going to give family gifts or experience gifts to stay within your budget? And maybe you're like, I don't have much money to spend. So what about selling some things you have at home or taking on a short term side job to earn some extra money?

Great advice. Now, the Christmas shopping season officially kicks off in 16 days if Black Friday is still considered that. I've got my Christmas budget now, so how do I make the holiday shopping less stressful? So if you really struggle to stick with the budget, I recommend sticking with cash only or buying a prepaid card or Amazon or store gift card so that you make sure that when you purchase online, you're actually sticking with your budget. And follow deal sites like Money Saving Mom for tips on the best deals. Also, I recommend always searching online for a coupon on a site like RetailMeNot.com before making an online purchase. And just a tip, the best deals are usually the week of Thanksgiving, which is Black Friday week, and then the two weeks after.

OK, that's helpful. Now, we love at our house baking Christmas cookies, making other treats, the whole family gets involved, but too much cooking can easily lead to stress as well. So how do you keep the pressures of holiday cooking in check?

I think really giving yourself permission to ask, you know, what shortcuts could you use? Could you buy pre-made cookie dough or bread dough? Sometimes it's actually the same price when you add up the cost of the ingredients and it saves you a lot of time. We also do one baking night in December where each child gets to choose one cookie and make it.

And at the end of the night, then we have different kinds of cookies and we've had this special evening, but it hasn't been like all month long where it feels like it's a lot of stress throughout the whole month. Oh, that's great. Now, if you're having one or more families over for a meal, Crystal, is it OK to ask everyone to bring something? Is that being a bad host? That is not being a bad host.

I would absolutely include it in the invite. I think it just makes things easier for everyone and I love being able to help out and knowing that the host isn't having to do everything when they ask people to bring stuff. What about family togetherness?

How are you encouraging that in your home? So one of the things we do is we create what we call a December bucket list. Everyone gets to choose one thing that they'd like to do in December as a family. And then we put that on the calendar. It usually is something like a family movie night, family game night, decorating Christmas cookies, going and looking at Christmas lights. Simple things.

But it means that everyone gets a voice and a vote. And we make really special memories without doing all the things. What a great idea. All right, let's finish with the real reason for the season. How do we keep Christ the focus of Christmas? So one thing that we do every year is we have some sort of Advent calendar or Advent devotional.

We vary it up depending upon the year. But one we love is by Anne Voskamp. It's called Unwrapping the Greatest Gift. You read a short devotional every day and then you put an ornament that correlates onto a little tree. And this not only is just a daily reminder, but also visibly why we celebrate Christmas. Oh, that's so good.

We do that at our house as well. Crystal, this has been incredible. Thanks for your time today and Merry Christmas. Thank you so much.

Merry Christmas to you. Folks, check it out. Money saving mom dot com. Again, that's money saving mom dot com. She's Crystal Payne.

I'm Rob West and I'll be right back. Are you overwhelmed by financial fear and anxiety at faith by we hear it every day. People weighed down by worries related to wealth and money.

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Read carefully before investing mutual funds distributed by Timothy Partners Ltd and ETFs distributed by Foresight Fund Services LLC. So glad to have you with us today on faith and finance. I'm Rob West. It's time for your calls and questions. We're ready for you.

The lines are open. We just need you. Eight hundred five two five seven thousand with any financial question today, whether it's your lifestyle, maybe it's your spending plan, how to stay on budget in light of these sky high expenses. Perhaps you're struggling with how to navigate this market or paying down debt.

Maybe it's giving wisely. Whatever you're thinking about today, we'd love to hear from you. The number is eight hundred five two five seven thousand.

That's eight hundred five two five seven thousand. You can call right now. Let's head to the phones. We'll go out to Idaho and welcome Maureen. Go ahead.

Yes. Hi, Rob. I just want to thank you for your financial service to the Christian community. We've been blessed time and time again. I just wanted to.

Yeah, I wanted to ask a question. Maybe it's trying to find the needle in the haystack, but my son and daughter in law have adopted four Ukrainian children. They're now all pretty much all teenagers. And so they are now looking for scholarships because several of them are definitely going on to colleges. So some time back, somebody had called into your program and they had a place or a number that they referred to you in terms of where you could get or apply for scholarships that have never been applied for or taken. And I don't know if that rings a bell with you, but I definitely remember and perked up and didn't write down the number. Yeah, no problem.

I don't recall a phone number. I will give you a couple of Web sites that I think could be a great resource for your son and daughter in law, because you're right. I mean, this college is expensive and I love the fact that they adopted from overseas and want to take advantage of anything that's available. And there are so many. But you're to your point earlier about a needle in a haystack.

You're right. I mean, it's really comes down to your willingness and ability to put the time in to find the scholarships and grants that are out there. There are certain international adoption scholarships. There's state and local scholarships. There's even private scholarships and then certain scholarships that are available by school. So many universities offer tuition waivers or specific scholarships for adopted children.

And so it's worth inquiring directly with the financial aid office of any college or university where the children may be interested in attending to see what they have as well. Just in terms of general Web sites, Maureen, to look at, I would send you to fast Web dot com fast Web dot com. They have essentially a free scholarship search platform that allows you to search a whole host of scholarships and you can refine your criteria and and find a number of tools there. Peterson's dot com would be another one. Peterson's is a great resource for these types of things and again, provides a helpful search tool that you could use. And then scholarships dot com would be another one.

But I would also, you know, don't hesitate to do some searches on the Web for just specific scholarships that are tailored in uniquely to the country that they've been adopted from to see if anything turns up. So I think those could at least get them pointed in the right direction as they start to look at what options exist. OK, well, that's wonderful.

That's more than I expected. We'll certainly give it a try. And thank you again, Rob. You're very welcome. We appreciate your call and thanks for your kind remarks about the program.

That means a lot. Let's go up to Newark, New Jersey. Hi, Dion. Go ahead.

Hi, Rob. Thank you for accepting my call. God bless you for your ministry and your honest advice. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. My question was, I was informed by an acquaintance to invest in a Morgan Stanley, what they call a mutual funding energy, because it's supposed to pay three thousand dollars every 30 days for a maximum of twelve thousand dollars a year. But it sounds kind of skeptical to me.

Maybe sounds a little too good to be true. I was wondering what your opinion was on that. And also, if there's anything similar to that, that might be a safe investment, maybe kind of a low risk factor. Yeah.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Dion. And Morgan Stanley is obviously a very reputable organization, but I have some questions on what you're describing here. So what did you say the investment was that would generate the twelve thousand a year?

How much do you put in? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to mention that. He said to invest twenty thousand and would pay three thousand every 90 days. And I said, I'll have to ask somebody about that because I don't know. I don't know about that.

Yes. Somebody is mistaken on that and perhaps someone just misunderstood. But I mean, that twelve thousand a year on a twenty thousand dollar investment would be a 60 percent return on your investment. So if there was anything that would pay in 60 percent without very much risk, people would be lined up around the block to to give them their money so that there's no way that that's possible. In terms of, you know, low risk, I mean, you know, the lower the risk, the lower your potential reward, of course. And so I think that's why we talk about diversification here, which we find in God's word, the idea behind diversification.

We talk about using multiple asset classes. So that's why you might have some in stocks and some in bonds and the mix of those changes throughout your lifetime. You move more toward the the more stable investments, which are the bonds and the CDs as you age. But you keep some exposure to stocks, although it declines over time so that you can have a growth component to your portfolio. Because as people are living longer, you know, even when you reach retirement, let's say at 65 or 70, you shift away from paid work.

If that's the way the Lord leads, you may need that money to last 20 or 30 more years. And so the way you offset the effects of inflation is to keep some exposure to stocks. But then you balance it out with the majority and maybe bonds and CDs, maybe some precious metals, things like that. You could certainly have some exposure to the energy sector, but I wouldn't be highly concentrated there. Some of the nice aspects of energy type investments, whether it's few through an individual stock ownership or a preferred stock or a mutual fund, is that they're generally income generating. And, you know, as the energy sector does well, then you do well. But you don't want to be overly concentrated there because that adds risk.

Because if the energy sector is out of favor for a period of time because of regulation or politics, kind of like we saw with the shift from the previous administration under Trump to Biden and the change in policy with regard to energy and natural resources, that affects those industries and there's a corresponding impact on the performance of those investments. And so if you don't have other sectors of the economy that offset it, you're too highly concentrated and then it becomes risky. So I think the bottom line to your original question is no, there's no way that Morgan Stanley has an investment that's offering 60 percent low risk returns. But it's a great organization and I think, you know, you finding either someone who can invest for you or doing it yourself, taking a diversified approach, perhaps using a high quality mutual fund, one that at your stage of life is skewed more toward bonds and fixed income with some exposure to stocks, probably makes sense. Yes, there's going to be some risk, but that's always the case when we're seeking a return. The key is to manage that risk in light of your goals and objectives. Does that all make sense, though?

Well, it makes a lot of sense, Rob. Yeah, right now I just have a seven month CD at five point five point zero one percent. OK. Yeah. And what's the total amount you have available to invest?

To keep some liquid, I guess maybe about 80 to 100 thousand. OK. Yeah, very good. Well, I like CDs a lot for that portion that you want to keep in the most conservative and especially while they're paying five percent.

That's great. The challenge is that's not going to be available forever. As these rates start coming down, the Fed funds rate, those CD rates will drop. So this might be a good time to reach out to a certified kingdom adviser who could manage that for you.

Keep a portion in CDs, but add some other investments along the way. If you want to do that, you could check with one at faith five dot com. Thanks for your call.

We'll be right back. Absolutely free. We know you've learned to be suspicious of those words, but really you can get biblical financial wisdom delivered to your inbox each week. Absolutely free articles, videos, podcasts and special offers on biblical resources.

Nearly 60000 people receive our free weekly wisdom email and you can to create your free faith by account by going to faith by dot com and click Sign up to begin receiving weekly wisdom in your inbox. Are you a financial adviser or CPA seeking to build your practice on biblical wisdom? Not only does the certified kingdom adviser education provide you with deep biblical insights.

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I'm Rob West. Hey, would you like an adviser who shares your values here at faith by we recommend the certified kingdom adviser designation. More than 1500 men and women across the US and Canada have earned CKA. They've met high standards and character and competence.

They've had a regulatory review, pastor and client reference, and they've been trained to bring a biblical worldview of financial decision making. Find a CKA in your area at faith by dot com. Just click find a professional. All right, let's head back to the phones to Pennsylvania. Hi, Anna. How can I help you? Thank you for taking my call. I truly thank God for your serving heart and gift of help. What a blessing. Thank you. I appreciate that very much.

Thank you. My birthday was this year. And as I was supposed to at 62 years old, I applied for special social security support. I was divorced over 30 years ago.

I was married for over 14 and I was the first wife. So in Pennsylvania, it took two and a half months for my phone call to come from Social Security. I was told there had to be a certain place at a certain time and had to receive it exactly at that point. I did do that. I was not told.

Well, I'm not sure how much detail you what I'll do the best I can. The person who spoke to me, it seemed that she'd been doing this for years, but evidently she wasn't. And did not tell me that since I did not have my husband's Social Security number, it did not tell me that they couldn't find it. I assumed that they had it. They weren't telling me it, you know, and of course, I didn't have it to give to them. I also didn't know at that time that he had moved to another state.

I didn't know. That was later found out in another conversation I had with her. I have spoken to her a few times since, but it's always extremely hard to get to, as I'm sure you understand.

Many, many days of hours on phone calls. Anyway, long story short is I did have to pay. She said, well, you have to have them at Farley's when she did call me back another time. She said, since we can't find a Social Security number, you have to get the marriage certificate, which was never told to me in the initial conversation. And she said that money is not able to receive.

There's no way to get it retroactively anyway, but I'll just have to wait. Although at that time when I spoke to her, I did tell her that I had paid the $79.50 to vital check, which is the only way to New York State where I was married that I could get the birth certificate, because all the other offices in Long Island were closed, et cetera, et cetera, moved or changed numbers. It was crazy to find, to finally hold this thing called Vital Check. I paid the money and the woman, I got hold of what I called again from Vital Check, told me that New York State is backed up from November. They're that far backed up behind. So I can't even hope, according to them, but God, to receive this money.

Yeah. Well, I'm so sorry. I know this is challenging, Anna, and boy, it's frustrating, you know, what it took you to get the call from Social Security only to find out you didn't get the information you need. You're missing documents.

And now you turn to the state of New York to get the marriage certificate. And they're saying, boy, it's going to take a while. Be patient. And I'm on their Web site right now. My amazing team saw your question, pulled it up, showed me the link to it.

And I'm looking at it as we speak. And it says, yeah, you can. I mean, the easiest way to order online. I understand you'd rather not use the Internet. So there's a phone number and then you can do it through the mail.

But in big red letters, it says right here on the New York dot gov. We are currently experiencing significant delays in order processing. So there's no question it's going to take some time. But I don't know that there's another option here, apart from you appealing back to SSA.

But I suspect you're exactly right. They are going to require that marriage certificate. And so we're just going to have to wait it out.

It'll come sooner than later. But unfortunately, I don't think there's another option here. So you've already submitted the paperwork through the mail, is that right?

No, no. I did find someone who had a computer and they were able to pay the 7950. I gave them the cash and they paid the 7950 for a vital check, which is what you have to go to. And so that was done. And as soon as that woman told me, I was able to find someone's computer and we did all that.

So that's done and paid. But they're telling me that even though I did that with just the speedy shipping and all that, they cannot do anything for me. The other thing is, I was wondering, I have a pay stub and a copy of my Social Security card on the same paper. I happen to find with my files, amazingly, on the same paper showing my Social Security number and my last name from that time. And I just wondered if you thought that would be something if I could even, because tomorrow is the day that they're going to throw me out of the system.

I'll have to start all over again, they said. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer on that. I'd hate to weigh in, Anna, just because, you know, when it comes to a government program, there are a lot of requirements.

Doesn't matter whether you're trying to get a passport or a marriage certificate or Social Security. You've just got to kind of walk through the hoops. And so I would say just continue to do what you're doing. I'm glad you submitted it online.

That's going to be the most efficient way to do it, even though they're backed up. And if you have additional questions, I would appeal back out to Social Security. So you're doing all the right things. Let's just ask the Lord to provide for you in the meantime. And this will get here before you know it. But I wish I had better, more concrete answers for you.

Unfortunately, I don't. But I do believe you are following the right steps. And we do appreciate your calling today. May the Lord bless you, Anna. Thanks for being on the program.

We're going to go to Texas next. And welcome, Tony. Go ahead, sir. Yes, sir.

Rob, enjoy your program. Had a quick question. I'm faithfully paying off a credit card after the death of my mother. And it's like 320 something a month. Which option do I stay with that? Well, obviously, I'll stay with that. My wife is willing to help me once you finish her credit card to help me pay it off. Or should I roll it over and open up a with a transfer of balance?

Just wanted to get your wisdom on that. Yeah, I appreciate that. What is the total amount that you have, Tony? About a little less than eight grand.

OK. Yeah. So if you're over and this isn't anything magic about this number, but just my experience is that if you're over 4000, it does make sense for you to use what's called the debt management program. And basically what would happen is the debt would stay right where it is, except the accounts would be closed and the interest rates would be dropped. So whatever you're paying today, they're going to be adjusted down to somewhere between, depending on the creditor.

Usually zero and eight percent could go as high as 12. And the combination of you making now a level monthly payment through a debt management company and those lower interest rates will allow you to pay that back 80 percent faster. And you can prepay it.

So if your wife has pays off some other debts and now you all have more money to allocate over to accelerate this even further, you can absolutely do that. And our provider there is Christian Credit Counselors dot org. Christian Credit Counselors dot org. They've worked with thousands of our listeners.

They're amazing. And they really are godly folks that just want to see God's people out of debt. The reason I like that, Tony, better than a balance transfer, even though you might say, well, why wouldn't I just get the zero percent for 18 months and then jump to another one? Number one, it typically because you take the pressure off my experiences, you just don't stay as focused on paying it off. The second reason is there's going to be a charge right up front of somewhere between two and three percent of the balance. And so, you know, if you've got eight thousand dollars and you're paying three percent, I mean, that's, you know, 250 bucks right off the bat that you're going to have to pay before you start paying off the debt. So for those reasons, I just would prefer you not to do the balance transfer game.

Just get this over to Christian Credit Counselors and they should be able to take it from there. Thank you, sir. God bless you.

All right. Thanks. We appreciate your call. That's going to do it for us today, folks. A big thanks to my team, Taylor Stanrich, Devin Patrick and Sandy Dickinson and everybody here at Faithfi. May the Lord bless you and come back and join us tomorrow. We'll see you then. Bye bye. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.