Daris Lancaster Stojakovich: Hi! I am Daris Lancaster Stojakovich, Clinical Hypnotherapist and Life Coach. Today we are talking about holiday stress and some tips for coping. Right now, I am going to be talking about financial stress, as in how to avoid, eliminate or cope with those during the holidays.

Financial stress during the holiday season can cause feelings of hopelessness. It can certainly shape a negative attitude and for a lot of people this is the number one stressor each holiday. There are some simple things that you can do to really eliminate, even perhaps, some of the stresses here in this section. But keep in mind that it can be very difficult because during this time of the year with the onslaught of commercialization and just everything thats stormed and bombarded our direction with shopping and gift purchasing and even money spend for food and travel and decorations. We really do need to plan for this area to really make sure that we dont have stress affect us during the holidays.

So what can I do to manage or even eliminate holiday stress with regard to finances? Well, there are a few steps that you can take. The first one would be to put some planning into place. Now this holiday stress with financial regard is not something that you catch off guard, we have about a years notice that its coming every year. So if you set aside a little bit of money on a weekly or a monthly basis, cash set-aside that you can use for the holidays, you will know what your budget is, you will know what your allotment for spending is and you will have less tendency to want to overspend and to buy that just one more thing.

Using cash is really important, leave the credit cards at home, there is nothing like being remind of the holidays. Every time the credit card bill comes in. Make sure that you can set expectations to, for financial expectations, they are really important. Set expectations of yourself and set expectations of others. You can certainly decide to cut your holiday spending, you can recycle gifts, you can give gifts of experience, you can brainstorm ways to not purchase but to make and to share and to give experiences, brainstorm ideas with your family and with your friends.

Now I mentioned the expectations, because if you set the expectations, perhaps, you even decide that this year that you will be doing name drawings, that only the children will receive gifts or that you wont be giving and expecting to receive any gifts at all. Expectations again, the number one reason that people cant be in the moment and enjoy the process of the holidays. They get caught up in expectations about financial, how things should be, how things have to be. So be very careful of those shoulds and have tos, those are things that we do unfairly that we say unfairly to ourselves. So examine those when it comes in regards to spending. Now about spending for the children? What about the kids who think that they can have everything on their list? Well, it can actually be a really good life lesson for them to know that their list is not necessarily mom and dads and Santa Clauss command. So if you can have the child, who is making a big, long list, just kind of pick out 2, 3 of their favorite things. Let them know that there will be something special that Santa Claus or mom and dad are looking for something, that will be special for them. Let them also know that its a good time for giving, recycling the toys that they have, giving some of the toys the way that they have that they dont use any longer can be a really good lesson here as well.

So I hope that some of these tips and suggestions have been helpful or insightful in how to cope with financial stress during the holidays. Next, we are going to be talking about the stress of doing too much in too little time.