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- [00:04]
Candy Valentino
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are the things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
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Welcome to the Candy Valentino show, the podcast for founders, investors and entrepreneurs where we have honest conversations about what it takes to grow your business, build more wealth and create financial freedom.
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Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the show. Thanks for tuning in with me today and today's topic I want to cover because I genuinely think it's on everybody's mind. You know, once we roll into this time of year, people have the holidays top of mind, top of inbox, top of your social feed. It's on every store shelf that you walk into, regardless where you're shopping. It seems like we have Halloween and fall and on the very next AIs we have all of the Christmas decorations. And you know, we're in a really tough economy. So a lot of times the holiday season makes it that much more difficult for many Americans. You know, 28% of consumers are still paying off debt on their credit card from last year's holidays and it's expected that people are going to be spending around $1778 this holiday, which is actually up 8% compared to last year. So it's a topic that is really, it's important because I mean, how do you rock around the Christmas tree without racking up the Christmas debt? I'm going to share a few ways and a few answers to help you get there as well as some money saving tips on the holiday season. Because like I said, as a business owner, taxes is one of your greatest expenses. But for every person, every consumer, the greatest knife in the heart of your wealth or your ability to grow wealth or make more money, money is bad debt. And so often we are using credit cards to purchase things that are depreciating assets. And that is why Americans credit card debt is in the trillions of dollars right now because people are going to their credit cards just to live, to buy groceries, to pay their utility bills, to just function on a day to day basis. So how can we not only avoid bad debt at Christmas, but how can we save a little bit? And I want to cover a few topics of how to have a debt free holiday and first things first. Now obviously I'm going to tell you because one of the things I always say is to have a budget and that's critically important. And I'm going to get there, of course. But before we get there, I want to talk about this. Have you ever thought about your philosophy for the holidays? Your gift giving philosophy, if you will. Like, what does this mean to you? What does this season mean to you? Is it just about finding and giving the most perfect gifts? Are you hoping to share what you bought or what you received on social media to impress others, to show them how much you spent or what you received? Do you feel obligated to buy for people? These are often motivations that we don't even realize and it's what can shape how we view and what we spend for this season. So it's a really important time that if you've never done this, to really pause and just be honest with yourself, to think about why you feel the need to buy all of these presents anyways. I think we have to do that before we think about how we're going to pay for everything. We need to stop and think, why are we doing this? Did we adopt something in all our environment? Are we trying to impress or do something different than maybe what we had in our childhood? And really decide what is your philosophy around gift giving, around the holidays, around Christmas, and make sure that you are not just repeating a pattern that was handed down to you or that you caught in your environment. Because spending habits are much like money beliefs, right? If you haven't ever stopped to really think about what it is that you think about money, how you view money, how you view people with money, you are most likely carrying around somebody else's belief that you adopted into your lifestyle, not realizing that that belief may be what's keeping you stuck, keeping you broke, and why you've not been able to break free. So stopping to identify what you believe about money, what you think about money, what your philosophy about money is, is the same importance of understanding what you think, believe, and maybe have adopted about gift giving and the philosophy with that. And now that we covered that first step, yes, we're going to get into a budget. So now how do you really become the hero of the holiday season? It's about having a budget. If you want to stay on track, you don't want to bring on bad debt, you don't want to get buried in bills. The way that you do that is to set a limit for how much you're going to spend and then actually stick to it. And I know this sounds so boring, but it is the one thing that will keep you on track. It's the same thing when you're running a business, you have to run a budget. You have to know where you're allocating funds into which expenses. The same thing applies, applies for our personal finances. We need to look at, okay, are you traveling for the holidays? How much does that cost? How much money are you spending on gifts? How much money do you have to spend to buy food to cook? Or if you're going out to eat or outsourcing that, what does that look like? Are you buying new decorations? What's the budget for that? Are you paying someone to help you decorate the house? What's that look like? I think oftentimes too when we write this down and we actually see that say you're going to spend the average $1,778 on Christmas, you don't factor in all of the food that you're cooking or all the decorations that you're buying. You can see how very easily this can get out of control. So develop a budget, track your spending, make sure that you are writing it down. You don't want to be one of the people that spend like crazy through December. Never check in on your budget, never track your spending and then you end up thinking that you're just going to worry about it in the new year. However, that overspending can not only ruin that next month and the next month, but the entire quarter. And like so many Americans that are paying on debt a year later, don't let that be you. Okay, now that we're going to step one, decide what our gift giving philosophy is and step two, create that budget and track those expenses. Number three is how do we create more money? How do we reallocate money to use towards Christmas? Obviously I always say that the easiest way to increase your ability to spend is increase your income or decrease your expenses. That's literally personal finance 101. How do we make more money? How do we spend less money so that we can have additional funds to allocate towards towards something else? So let's get into them. What makes a leader? It's a tough question, but one thing's for sure. A true leader leads by example. And a true leader takes risks too. They plunge into life with determination. 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Roverusa.Com this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice make another smart choice with Autoquote Explorer to compare rates for multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.
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This episode is brought to you by Global X. Since 2008, Global X ETFs has been committed to empowering investors with unexplored intelligent solutions. Global X specializes in exchange traded funds that offer exposure to the artificial intelligence ecosystem, including themes like data centers, robotics, semiconductors and cloud computing. To learn more about Global X's entire suite of ETFs from covered calls, fixed income, emerging markets and more, Visit global.
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X etf's.com Number one can you cancel any unwanted subscriptions or is there something that you can just live without for a few months? Let's say you have a few subscriptions for apps or ChatGPT or Canva. Is there anything that you can do without for just a few months? And the best way to do this is to sit down with all of your expense reports from your credit card or your bank statement and really go through line by line and see could I live without this for just two months? I'm not saying cancel it altogether, but is there something that you can just do without? And now you can reallocate those funds that you've been spending towards this other budget, this Christmas or this holiday budget that you can then spend on gifts and food and travel and all the things that you do during your holiday season. The second would be can you renegotiate any of your utility costs? You know, this is something that we still do as a company, and me personally, every single year where we reach out to the electric company, the gas company, my phone provider providers, and making sure that we're on the best plan for our usage. Is there anything that you can do to negotiate down utilities insurance or if you have a small business, is there a certain software or platform that you use that you typically pay for that maybe you can just downgrade for a few months? All of these little things add up. And obviously, if you have a big business or a big company or a big net worth, you still are able to do these things and they actually just exponentially grow. So where can you find areas in your life, personal finances or business, that you can save? Couple hundred, couple thousand, and you can stash that away for holiday spending. The next step is to shop early. So often people wait to the very last minute thinking that Black Friday specials are the best. But there are a lot of early deals and discounts that you can get. And the longer you wait, the more likely you are to have to get faster shipping options, which most places charge for. Last thing you want is to have your budget ruined by waiting too long and having all of those additional rush order costs. Another way that you can really save is by having conversations with other people in your family. Do you really need every aunt, every cousin, every grandparent, every single person bringing the kids a gift? What if you went all in together? You know, something that we do in my family, the aunts and uncles do not buy the nieces and nephews gifts because the grandparents do and the parents do. And that's plenty enough. And that is something that we sat down, we talked about, and we just do as a family. And it's like 10 less gifts that we have to buy. And the kids are not suffering in any way because they still have grandparents that get them gifts and their parents that get them gifts. And why rack your brain and spend all of that time trying to find something perfect for someone that is probably going to get donated in another 12 months? So here's your permission to stop any traditions that have just been carried on, or to have conversations to see if everybody else is thinking what you're thinking, which is like, why do we do all of this work all of the time and put ourselves into such a stress frenzy when people do not need one more thing? Like, we are so grateful to live where we live. I mean, literally half of the entire world lives on less than $10 a day. The fact that you're having all of this stress and putting yourself in debt to just buy Christmas gifts for people. There are other ways that you can show love. Spending time with someone and having a great cup of coffee and a nice conversation. Especially if somebody's love language is words of affirmation and spending quality time, they would love that over some gift that you had to buy at the mall. And if there is a really big expensive gift that really know that somebody needs or wants, it doesn't necessarily have to be off the table. You can have other people in your family chip in or go together and get that one big gift for your parents or that one teacher or coach that everybody loves. You can all chip in for a nice gift card. And that experience creates something that you can share together. So think outside of the box. And another thing you can always do is if you want to really give a gift that's personal, memorable, one of a kind, make it. I mean, seriously, Pinterest and Instagram has all kinds of ideas and instructions. Instructions. And even if you're not very crafty, you can bake, you can put together a sugar scrub, a homemade candle. You can get your kids involved and have it be this experience that you do every year together. And I call that stacking. If we can have an experience where we spend time together and we are going to make something for someone else, well, to me that's a double win because now we just spent time together as a family or friends and we're making this that then we give to someone else else. So I want to challenge you to be intentional, not just about your spending, but instead of just buying gifts, to buy a gift. Can you make it more meaningful? Do you know this person well enough to know what their love language is? That maybe buying them a flashy gift isn't really what they want? Maybe they would rather have their closet cleaned out. Okay, wait a minute, maybe that was me. But maybe they would rather have something done around the house. Or maybe it would be errands that you could run for them or taking their kids to a play or a movie so that you can have a night out with your spouse. Things like that really under understanding who you're giving the gift to. And if you've never read that book, Five Languages of Love, that's an incredible book that everyone should read because it really talks about not everyone is a gift giver. Not everyone likes to receive gifts. Sometimes acts of service or quality time ranks over gifts. So you can actually save money, even though you're not even really that really. It's not about saving money. It's really about giving the person the gift that they really want. And so often we are able to buy anything. So it's like, what do people really need? So be intentional. And this also brings me to one of the last points is to resist temptation. Look, I know malls are struggling, but they also make your bank account struggle because there are so many deals and sales and specials. And the reason that businesses offer these is because they know they work. So if you can stay away from Shopping in malls where you are walking around aimlessly and probably spending more than you need and not having the millions of distractions including Santa Claus and the sugar cinnamon pretzels and all of those retail displays and samples and the pushy person that's working at the kiosk. Save yourself money and time and stress and don't go to the mall. Be very specific with your list, who you're going to buy for and what you're going to buy for them so that you can shop intelligently and look for the best deals. And speaking of such, unsubscribe to those unwanted marketing emails. If you feel the need to spend every single time you get a sale email in your inbox that says spend 30 and get 50 free or whatever it might be, you just need to opt out of them. Opt out of any text alerts, anything that you cannot control your spending or it looks too good to be true on a retail app or a brand on social media that you find yourself overspending on. Just unsubscribe, unfollow, opt out, whatever it is that you need to do to put up the parameters, the guardrails so that you do not go into debt or take on new debt this holiday season. And if you find yourself in a position that you still need to make more money in order to avoid doing that, then there are endless options out there right now. Obviously you can drive for Uber or Lyft delivering food or you can pick up extra hours. You can dog sit or house sit for people that are traveling for the holidays or babysit. You can wrap gifts. I pay someone to wrap my gifts. You can wrap gifts, seriously, like post it on Facebook, neighborhood groups or other work forums. And you can have people drop off their gifts or their dog and you wrap them or sit with them for a fee. Remember, Christmas is not about being a competition. It's about focusing on the joys of the season, about being with family. And if you have somebody that is extremely difficult to buy for on your list, like what do they really need? They don't need anything. So maybe if you feel the need to give a gift, consider giving a donation in their honor to their favorite charity. Create a card or get one from the organization and put something in there, print it out on your computer or write it in there. That just lets them know that you donated to their charity. And if you have a business, it's a tax write off for you. So it is a win, win, win and truly a blessing for everyone because nonprofits are really struggling now Covid really hit them hard. I can tell you firsthand from having a nonprofit and so many other people that I know as well. So it will mean the world to that nonprofit in order to have that donation. And that is something that is going to be doing good work out in the world, not necessarily ending up in a thrift store in 10 months. Remember, the holidays and Christmas are about family and memories, not about how much you can spend. Don't ruin yourself financially for the next 12 months or three years just for one day. All right guys, that's all for today's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in and spending this time with me today. We'll see you next time. Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to this episode and if there was something that you loved or you a specific takeaway, share it and tag me at Candy Valentino. And if you haven't already, grab a copy of my latest book, the 9% Edge Life Changing Secrets to create more revenue for your business and more freedom for yourself. You can pick it up anywhere books are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble or your local independent store. And once you do, head over to 9% edge.com and claim $1,500 in pre order bonuses, including a chance to join me on this very show. Thanks so much for tuning in and spending this time with me today, guys. We'll see you next time.
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Former Navy SEAL Sean Ryan shares real stories from real people from all walks of life on the Shawn Ryan Show. Former US Navy Admiral Tim Gallaudet. How did you get involved in the whole UFO thing?
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Tim Gallaudet
One day I get this email on the Navy Secret Network. If any of you know what these are, tell me ASAP. F18 pilots captured video of this UAP Zorchin over the water. Just a little round sphere. And so I knew right there that was something not ours.
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Candy Valentino
The Sean ryan Show on YouTube or wherever you listen.