169. How to Stop Overspending to Feel Like a Good Parent: The Real Cost of an Expensive Holiday

Have you ever bought a gift because you felt guilty - not because you planned it? In this episode, we dig into the emotional triggers behind spending to buy affection and why guilt, comparison, and holiday pressure so easily lead to overspending. Learn how to set healthy boundaries, stop feeling responsible for everyone else’s happiness, and create a holiday season centered on connection, not consumerism.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

• Why holiday guilt and comparison lead to overspending
• The emotional roots of “buying affection” (and how to untangle them)
• How overspending affects your kids’ long-term relationship with money
• Three powerful steps to break the cycle and spend with intention
• Real scripts you can use with kids, spouses, and extended family
• How boundaries create more connection, not less

Ready to create a holiday season that feels peaceful instead of pressured? Book a clarity call and let’s build a money plan aligned with your values at AccelerateYourLegacy.com/claritycall.

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Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants-15: 0:00

Sometimes at the Christmas season, we find ourselves spending to buy affection rather than just spending to buy some gifts.

Laura: 0:08

hello and welcome to money and career mastery from overwhelmed to ownership. I'm Laura Sexton, your abundance and legacy coach here to help you navigate the world of money, debt payoff, and career growth with confidence and clarity. In this podcast, we'll tackle the financial and career challenges, holding you back, optimize your income and build the freedom that comes with true ownership. If you're ready to break free from overwhelm, create a budget that aligns with your values and design a legacy that empowers future generations. You're in the right place.

Audio Only - All Participants-15: 0:41

Hey, accelerators, have you ever thrown something in your cart because you felt bad, not because you planned it? Well, maybe it was a little, oh, I'm sorry I missed your game gift for your kid, or an impulse splurge because you just wanted to make up for being busy or being distracted, or maybe. Because we're at the holiday seasons, this is the time that gets you, you know, it's that quiet pressure to keep up with everyone and what everyone else is doing, and you need to prove your love through how much you give. If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. Today we are talking about spending by affection. Those moments when your heart in your wallet gets a little tangled. Your heart is in the right place. You love your people, but if your budget is waving a little white flag, it might be time to step back and ask, what am I really trying to say with this purchase? Because love doesn't come with a price tag, so let's entangle that together. First of all, I want to just go ahead and say that my voice is a little hoarse. Today I have been teaching classes and using my voice a lot. It is the winter time, so throat Coat is my best friend. Unfortunately, it's just gonna come off a little groggy. My apologies. I love you very much. Thank you for sticking with me. Second of all, I am in the exact opposite of what we are talking about today, this idea of spinning to buy affection. I have this desire to not buy a single thing for my kids at all for the rest of the year. It is a weird feeling of I'm tired of them being ungrateful and I'm frustrated having to pick toys up. We're not paying attention or caring for the things that we have, and so my attitude personally is I don't wanna spend another dime on stuff to bring in my house. However, I have a couple clients we're spending to buy affection. A common everyday struggle. It's not just at the holidays, it's all the time. It's buying affection, it's buying attention, and we need to take a look at that and see where it comes from. Let's see what the real cost is of that, and that's what we're gonna be talking about today. So I just wanted to level set with you and let you know where I was coming from so that we could really get into this. When I say spending to buy affection, here is what I mean. This is when we use our money to manage emotions, be it guilt, fear, comparison, loneliness, instead of using it as a tool for stewardship. It can look like this. Oh, we doing Christmas or birthdays because last year felt too small. Have you guys seen Harry Potter? There's that scene where the dursleys are buying their son gifts and they have won fewer than last year, and he starts to throw a fit and they're like, oh, but some of them are much bigger than last year. And he's like, I don't care. I want more. That's kind of what I was thinking of when I wrote that one. Last year just felt too small. Saying yes to every school fundraiser, saying yes to the book fair, saying yes to the special t-shirt because you don't want to disappoint anyone. I did fall into this every year for jogathon at school. I buy the specialty t-shirt for my kid because I can't let my kid be the only one that doesn't get one. Right. Buying things you can't afford just to keep up with other families. I don't want to ever be this, but sometimes I definitely find myself veering into that category or quietly thinking, well, I didn't grow up with my with much, and I want my kids to have everything I didn't have. You don't actually, if you stop to think about it, you don't actually want them to have everything that you didn't have. But if any of these relate to you, take a deep breath. You are not a bad parent, and you are not an unwise spender. You are a loving person whose heart is in the right place, but we're just gonna have to point that love in a healthier direction. Let's get honest about what's really going on under the surface. For most of us, this habit comes from a mix of a few things. It's guilt. Maybe you've missed an event or a milestone because of work or stress, or you simply forgot you're trying to make it up with gifts or what about comparison what other people post online or what your kids' friends have? It's hard to not hear your child come home and go, well, everyone else has. Uh, it's the worst. What about your childhood stories? Maybe you didn't have much growing up, so now you overcompensate, you get things for your kids, but really you're getting them for you. Or maybe you had everything and now you struggle to find balance. Maybe there's a fear of disappointment or conflict, so it's easier to swipe a card than it is to say no. Oh, boy. Yeah, I've, I've been there too. I've absolutely said yes to something out of guilt and then regretted it later. If you're nodding along right now, I want you to hear this clearly. You don't need to buy your way into connection. The people who love you, want you. They want your attention. They want your laughter. They want your peace, not your purchase. Okay? The real cost of buying affection, well, that's not just financial, it's also emotional. Financially it's gonna create a pattern. Overspending leads to stress. Stress leads to shame and shame leads to avoidance, and then the cycle repeats. And relationally, we accidentally teach the people we love. That love is equal to stuff. Yes equals love, and that more equals better. If we teach our kids that yes equals love, they're going to be doing the wrong thing in the backseat of somebody's car one day. I just want that to sink in with you. What you were teaching your little children about money. We're either teaching them to give themselves away because yes equals love, or we're teaching them to give their money away because they don't feel love unless there's a lot of stuff and that just breeds all kinds of discontent. More does not equal better. That kind of giving leaves everyone emptier. Leaves you emptier because you, your budget is drained and you're worried and they are emptier because they never learn. That love is so much bigger than what money can buy. Your desire to give big comes from love, and that's great, but love does not require you to abandon wisdom. Let's think back for a second when you remember your own favorite childhood memories. What stands out? Was it the toy or was it baking cookies and decorating the tree Movie night. Driving to see Christmas lights, laughing so hard that someone spit milk out of their nose. I remember sitting around the kitchen table with my cousins playing dominoes or a hand of cards and laughing so hard. Our sides hurt. Very few things I could tell you I got for Christmas, but that time that I spent, I remember those. I remember some of the craziest inside jokes. They were hilarious. They still crack me up when I think about them. But what everybody got for Christmas, I don't have any idea. Our kids, our spouses, our friends, they remember how we made them feel, not what we bought them. So if your family values connection, faith, adventure, creativity, how can your giving reflect those things? Try the shift instead of giving everything, give intentionally one meaningful gift. One special experience, one family memory, that becomes tradition. Every year I bake cookies with my kids. Now my mom will send me a 10 full of cookies and it's eight or nine different flavors, and whereas I'd like to get there one day. Right now, just one or two. One or two types of cookies for the kids, something they can decorate, and then something that I can enjoy. Because the cookies with the Too much frosting. It's too much frosting and I No, but a real good chocolate chip cookie. Yes, please sign me up for that. Taking our kids to Disneyland or Universal Studios, yes, that is an expensive treat, but if they don't get anything else and they only get the trip, we spend weeks, if not months, talking about. The different pieces of that trip. My kids have the most beautiful inside jokes already, and they're 9, 6, 4, 2, and almost eight months. That's legacy level love, and that's what I want to continue. I want my kids to have all the inside jokes. How do we actually stop the cycle though? The spending to buy affection cycle? Well, here are three simple. Step by step check-ins that you can use all season long. Step one, catch the trigger. When you feel the impulse to spend, pause and ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? Is it guilt, fear of missing out, embarrassment, loneliness. Your quick filter is, am I buying from love? Or from fear, am I buying from love or from guilt? Am I buying from love or from comparison? Am I buying it just so that the kids have an equal number of presents under the tree? We don't need to do things that way. Step two is clarify what you're trying to say with the money. After asking yourself the question. What am I feeling right now? Then ask yourself, what am I trying to communicate? Maybe I'm trying to say, I love you, or I'm proud of you, or I'm sorry I missed that thing. But you need to ask, is there a non-money way to say this too? Could it be a handwritten note, a date night going for a walk together? Could we do some small act of service? Those are gifts too, and they're great ones and they're ones that are going to be felt for a longer period of time. And then step three, create boundaries and a plan. You have to pre-decide your limits. How much are you going to spend? How many gifts are you going to buy, and which events are you going to say yes to? You can't. Decide in the moment because if you were deciding in the moment, you're going to make a hasty and probably not wise choice. So decide your limits and then stick to them. Boundaries don't mean that you love less, they help you love more intentionally, and sometimes that's even bigger. If you've already set a gift budget, every yes becomes easier. Every no comes from peace and not from feeling the pressure. If you have a hard time at Christmas, say no. Put your credit card away. Let's make this real. Here are a few phrases that you can borrow. When those awkward money moments pop up for your kids, you say things like, we're keeping gifts simple this year so that we can have more fun experiences together. I promise you, they will be okay with this. They're not going to be disappointed. They want to spend time with you. To a spouse or a partner, you say, I want us to just enjoy the season and still feel good when the credit card bill comes. Can we agree on a gift limit? The number of people I have heard that have come up to me and said, I really was hesitant to put a restriction on spending or an experience that we were doing. When I stopped it, everyone else was like, oh my goodness, I'm so glad you said something. We were thinking the same thing, but we weren't brave enough to say it. I haven't had a person put up a boundary around Christmas giving and have someone push back that had a healthy relationship with gift giving. Now I have had one person who pushed back and it was really ugly because they wanted a certain number of gifts and they only received love through somebody giving them something, and that is not a healthy situation. We have to receive love in other ways. Practical extended family script that you can use. We're focusing on experiences and small gifts this year. The kids have plenty of things already and we're just trying to simplify. Hey grandmas, I know how much you love your grandkids. They do not need 47 toys each, especially 47 small toys that I'm going to step on later. Why don't we all put in for one gift or keep it something they can read or something they need? Those are really great gifts to get and a script to tell myself or yourself. Find this because I feel guilty won't make me less guilty. It'll just make me extra stressed later. Okay, maybe I'm talking to myself here, and yes, you can say it awkwardly and you can stumble through it. It still counts as leadership, guys, this is what ownership looks like in real life. Making a decision, setting a boundary, and sticking with. If you wanna take this steeper, I'm gonna give you a couple reflection questions that you can journal on or you can talk about on your next money date or your next family budget meeting. Where am I most tempted to spend to buy affection? Who am I most? Attempted to spend money on to buy affection that might hit you real good. Question two, when I think about my favorite memories growing up, what actually mattered, and three, what's one boundary I can set this holiday season that will help me love my people better? Spending to buy affection comes from a good heart, but it won't give you the peace, the connection, or the legacy that you really want. You can show ridiculous, extravagant love without swiping your future away. There are too many people who are still going to be paying for Christmas with penalties included in February, in March. Do not be one of those people. If this conversation hit close to home for you and you're already. Ready to set some boundaries that align with your values. Let's have a conversation book a clarity call at accelerateyourlegacy.com/claritycall all one word, and let's make this holiday season one that actually feels peaceful. Next week we're talking about the gratitude equation. It's how to grow contentment and generosity without the chaos. This is the antidote to holiday pressure and you don't wanna miss it. Until then, take a deep breath. You're doing better than you think and your love. It is already strong enough. That's it for this week. Accelerators go out and make a difference.

Laura: 15:58

thank you for spending time with us today on Money and Career Mastery from Overwhelm to Ownership. Remember, your legacy isn't just about financial freedom. It's about living with purpose, taking action, and building a foundation that lasts for generations. Don't just listen, implement what you've learned and share it with someone who could use a financial or career breakthrough. If you found value in today's episode, help us grow by rating, reviewing, and sharing the podcast. I'll be back next week with more strategies to help you master your money and career. Until then take ownership of your future and build your legacy with intention.