0:05

Hello and welcome to It All Adds

0:07

Up the podcast where we chat about money,

0:10

how to get it, how to spend it and how to

0:12

invest it. I'm senior economics

0:14

writer Jess Irvine.

0:15

And I'm money and a dumb pal. And just

0:18

as Michael Bublé once said in his

0:20

2011 Christmas album, it's

0:22

beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

0:24

It is. Did he sing it or did he croon it?

0:27

He crooned it. He definitely crooned it.

0:29

He's a bit of a creator. I love it. He's hitting

0:31

me up in the mail. My Spotify ads

0:33

seem to be Bublé related.

0:35

On that note, this episode today does have a bit

0:37

of a Christmas Eve theme because we're going to talk about

0:40

how you can save a bit of money around

0:42

the festive season in all sort of different

0:44

shapes and sizes and forms. And

0:46

just if you bought your Christmas gifts yet, are you an early

0:48

gift buyer?

0:50

I've done a bit of it. I'd love to. I'd

0:52

love to say that I did what I gave advice

0:54

to everyone to do, which was to sort of buy everything

0:56

in the Black Friday sales. And I do have a friend

0:59

who sort of that weekend said, I'm done.

1:01

I've bought every single, single gift that I needed

1:03

that sort of half price off. And I did not

1:05

do that. I have

1:07

I'm not sure about the average age of the listeners of

1:09

our podcast, but I am in close

1:11

contact with Santa because I have

1:14

a son. And so we're in direct

1:16

liaison in terms of what goods

1:18

will be delivered from the North Pole this year

1:21

and which ones I'm directly responsible for,

1:23

for getting in. There's still some last minute requests

1:26

coming in. So managing that flow,

1:30

that's where I'm at. So I've bought a few

1:32

things, got a few things I need to

1:34

tell Santa still to procure.

1:37

But how about you?

1:38

I'm a really terrible gift buyer. Like,

1:40

I'm. I'm like, you know,

1:42

sorry to my family who does listen to this

1:44

podcast, but I'm like a real last minute, sort

1:46

of like, you know what? What do I get this

1:49

year? I feel like I've been actually a little bit better than usual. Like,

1:51

sometimes I will quite literally do things like the

1:53

last week, like you'll see me at High Point,

1:55

like, you know, roaming around trying to find gifts. But

1:58

I've been I've been a little bit better this year. I've got I've got

2:00

my gifts sort of planned out. I'm feeling I'm

2:02

feeling good.

2:03

Yeah. I have actually followed what is

2:05

our first piece of advice about sort of

2:07

gift giving and managing costs, which is

2:09

to talk about it with your

2:11

family and friends. So I've actually

2:13

this year I have texted

2:15

a couple of my girlfriends, we've got a group

2:17

chat, there's two of us. And I said, Oh,

2:20

I'll tell people. I'll just read it out from my

2:22

phone because I think that's helpful. The

2:24

sort of the phraseology about this was

2:26

my way of telling them, Hey, I'm not going to spend a lot of money

2:28

on you this Christmas. I said it in a really

2:30

nice way. I said, Hello, lovelies.

2:33

Heads up. I'll be buying you both a little

2:35

Christmas present this year in the modest

2:37

$25 range. Santa's

2:39

emoji, Smiley face emoji.

2:41

So that's it? That's perfect. That's exactly what

2:43

you want to do.

2:44

Nothing says love more than a specific monetary

2:47

value to me.

2:47

Yeah, and a couple of emojis.

2:50

And a couple of emoji. And so that was well

2:52

received. They like, Oh, thanks for letting me know.

2:54

Yeah, I'll. I'll do the same for you. So you

2:56

sort of just telegraph ahead of time because

2:58

I did have some aukey's situations

3:00

last year where people have bought me presents

3:03

and I hadn't bought presents for them yet.

3:06

So making a list, figuring out who you're actually

3:08

going to buy gifts for is a great place to start,

3:10

isn't it?

3:11

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, as you mentioned, this is

3:13

sort of, you know, what we're going to talk about in terms

3:15

of some sort of ideas for you to say, because

3:17

it is it's been a hard year

3:19

and it's been a hard few years and there's a

3:21

few things going on in the world. I don't know anyone's

3:23

noticed, but there's a couple of things that are happening.

3:25

And this means that we don't have as much money as we

3:27

may have had in previous years. We

3:29

won't get into it. You know, there's a lot of a lot of

3:32

things, but generally that means that we're

3:34

approaching Christmas and people probably have a little less

3:36

cash in their pocket than they might usually. So

3:38

I think there is a few things that you can do to sort

3:40

of sort of mitigate that or sort of get ahead

3:42

of that. But yeah, as I was just sort of mentioned, just

3:45

talking about it, I like, you know, I'm I'm blessed

3:47

by the fact that I've only got a very small group of people

3:49

that I buy gifts for, like it's pretty much my immediate family

3:51

and that's it. So I don't really have to do sort

3:53

of the awkward like, oh, is my cousin

3:55

going to get me get me a gift this year, anything like that. But

3:57

I know a lot of people do. So it is worth one of

3:59

those things that it's sort of worth, you know, getting ahead of and

4:02

chatting about now.

4:03

Yeah. And I feel like the conversation this

4:05

year is pretty different because everyone knows

4:07

we've all been smashed by the cost of living,

4:10

by interest rates going up, rents

4:12

going up. I feel like there's a different context

4:15

for this Christmas to be able to say, Hey,

4:17

look, my budget is tight. There's just

4:19

actually I haven't got a lot of room in the in the budget

4:21

this year to do extravagant gifts.

4:24

But I'm really looking forward to spending

4:27

time with you. And I'd also love to get you

4:29

something. But you know, it's going to be that

4:31

more modest price range. But hey, what's

4:33

Christmas about anyway? It's not about gifts

4:35

that are going to put me into

4:38

bankruptcy. You know, like I feel like

4:40

there's room to have a new and conversation

4:42

about it and an open and honest one. And

4:45

it's better to have that conversation. And I

4:47

think you might be actually met by

4:49

relief if you are the one that initiates that.

4:51

Yeah, because everyone's feeling it.

4:53

Yeah, absolutely. And also stop. So situations

4:55

where someone might get you like a really generous

4:58

gift and you'd be like, I just got them

5:00

like, you know Pam from

5:02

Coles or. Something like that. I don't know. It

5:04

sort of prevents a situations where there might be a really awkward

5:06

mismatch in sort of the level of of money you've spent

5:08

on someone to have.

5:09

A chat about it with your people that

5:12

you're going to give presents to.

5:14

And then once you do actually get to the to the gift

5:16

giving stage, there's multiple

5:19

different ways and different forms that gifts

5:21

can can bring. Like obviously we're all fairly

5:23

conditioned into, I think, you know, the standard gifts

5:25

of material objects and, you know, the

5:27

various different sizes and expenses

5:30

and all that sort of stuff. But, you know, it's broad and vast

5:32

to the world of gift giving. Yes, it.

5:34

Is. You've got to think laterally, Open

5:37

your minds. And my favorite

5:39

piece of gift giving advice comes from economists.

5:42

And, you know, I listen to economists way too much.

5:45

But the best piece of advice from economists

5:47

on gift giving is to give the gift

5:49

of cash.

5:52

So I. I love getting cash. I

5:54

think there's I think it's an underrated gift.

5:56

I know. I think we've as a society found a really

5:59

socially. Okay. Way to do that

6:01

with gift cards. You know, somehow it's different

6:03

if you just hand somebody a crisp

6:05

$50 note is somehow

6:08

different to giving them a gift card that says

6:10

$50. Yeah.

6:11

Yeah.

6:12

It's different and it's okay. And here's

6:14

a gift cards this Christmas. And,

6:17

you know, if people and loved ones

6:19

are feeling a bit of the

6:21

pressure, you can get gift cards

6:23

that might go for not just even for a specific

6:25

retailer, but like for a shopping

6:28

center like Westfield does gift

6:30

cards. And so you're essentially giving

6:32

them 50 bucks or whatever, but they could go

6:34

spend it. Maybe if they need to spend it on the groceries,

6:36

they can go do that at a Kohl's or Woolies

6:38

in the same shopping center. So

6:40

there's no judgment as to how they're actually going

6:43

to spend the money. So

6:45

I like that because there was this fantastic

6:47

American book by an economist,

6:49

Joseph Waldfogel, called Scrooge,

6:51

a nomics, and he talks about the dead,

6:54

the dead weight loss of Christmas. So

6:56

you had 50 bucks in your pocket and

6:58

you went and spent it on 50 bucks of

7:01

a 50, whatever. You've

7:04

just burned that cash into something

7:06

that the gift receiver might

7:08

not value. You know, they might only have wanted to

7:10

spend 20 bucks on hand. So you've sort of

7:13

created this dead weight loss for society.

7:15

So the most efficient thing is to just give the $50

7:17

note to the person to go spend how they

7:19

want to spend it. So I would love to normalize

7:22

that.

7:23

I hear this and I and I

7:25

think it's valid, but at the same time, it makes

7:27

me think that like Christmas with economists is

7:29

not like the most like, fun affair. It's

7:31

just like, you know, everyone sitting around had each other

7:34

like $50 notes and being like, Now don't

7:36

spend it too quickly. Remember, inflation's

7:38

going up. You know, that's it. I

7:40

mean, I understand the premise of it, but, you

7:42

know.

7:43

Yeah. So if you're not into that, maybe

7:46

let's whip through some other options.

7:48

Like, and I think one of the classic ones that you see, especially

7:51

for like big families, are like people who have like really

7:53

big Christmases, like the Secret Santa sort of thing

7:55

or it's like a, you know, $20 limit. You're

7:57

not getting anything too wild. And that

7:59

can be extended to like, you know, maybe you hadn't

8:01

haven't done that with your family in the past. And maybe

8:03

this year you go, Hey, maybe we should do this this year,

8:05

guys, because that means we can spend a little bit less

8:07

money than we usually do, which is

8:10

always a good option. And so. GROSS And this can be fun, especially

8:12

if you do the one we get to steal the present from

8:14

other people.

8:15

How does that work?

8:16

Like, everyone has a gift and then you can like, instead

8:18

of when you get your gift, you can choose to keep it or you

8:20

can like steal someone else's. It gets pretty

8:22

brutal. I think it's I think it's maybe only good

8:25

if it's like a really big group of people. You

8:27

wouldn't want to do that with like, just like your four family members

8:29

or something like that.

8:29

Yeah. Okay. That's. Yeah. So

8:32

instead of buying a gift for all four people,

8:34

whatever, you only have to buy one gift. Yeah. You

8:36

save the money. Yeah, I think that would be a good

8:39

thing for people to consider this year. This

8:41

is another one that maybe makes me look a bit Scrooge,

8:44

but I love the idea of have. And I've never done

8:46

this, but having setting a free challenge.

8:49

So, like, you can only give gifts

8:51

that you got for free. And

8:53

I do have a friend who she said that they did

8:55

this like, including like stuff

8:57

you find on the curbside, you know,

8:59

in hard rubbish collection, which I love

9:02

going scavenging through. You can join

9:04

like street bounty groups on Facebook

9:07

and they say there's a there's

9:09

a hot looking chest of drawers on the corner

9:11

or whatever. And

9:13

then you can go and find the good stuff or

9:16

there's like buy nothing. Groups

9:18

on Facebook or Freecycle

9:20

is another one. So I just think that could

9:22

be it sort of. It

9:24

also puts more onus on the

9:26

shoppers when you're not shopping, you know, spending

9:28

money to like be creative and really

9:30

person and like think outside the box.

9:33

I think that could be fun if you and then you're not spending

9:35

any money.

9:36

Yeah exactly. And there's I suppose that extends to things

9:38

like doing like a handmade gift to Christmas. So that's

9:40

usually that's very low cost. Like, yeah, you know, I've

9:42

definitely had a few gifts like that in the past,

9:44

which are always very nice, is like easily have that

9:46

sort of personable sort of special

9:49

sort of aspect to it without having spent a

9:51

lot of money on it.

9:52

I love the idea I heard of like

9:54

you could get a jar and you could get

9:56

paddle pop sticks or whatever pieces

9:59

of paper and put out, you know, 12

10:02

or one. 52. If you want to do one per

10:04

week and like put a little promise on there, like

10:06

for your partner to say, I'll take out the bins

10:08

for January and that's, you know, or, or

10:10

not even, you know, put it to a month but

10:13

like it and you pull out a stick and you know it's

10:15

redeemable for you do it.

10:18

As low as like one of the sixes and say like I

10:20

will give you $50 like defeats

10:22

the entire purpose of it. Monetary

10:25

non-monetary gifts. Yes. In

10:27

the same sort of vein, I think there's been this big

10:29

boom over the past, like I'd say,

10:31

decade. So giving people experiences rather

10:33

than gifts. So like, you know, rather than giving someone

10:35

a new phone, you give them like a hot air balloon

10:37

ride or something like that. Right. But like, that

10:39

can also be like experience is going to be free. You can be

10:41

like, I am going to take you on a lovely bushwalk

10:43

and we're going to go and have a lovely bushwalk somewhere

10:45

together. And that's my Christmas gift to you. And

10:48

that's that's like, you know, what are you paying

10:50

for that, Like petrol to get there I suppose, like, you know,

10:52

but like that's, that's about it really.

10:54

So the thing is if it's like I'm

10:56

going to buy you theatre tickets if you were going to do

10:58

that anyway, it's sort of just shifting

11:00

that forward and rebadging that as a present when it's

11:02

money you were probably going to spend to do something together

11:05

anyway. So that's kind of cheating.

11:07

Yeah, exactly. And we love cheating. So

11:09

on to some more sort of like non directly non

11:12

gif related ideas. Obviously there's lots of

11:14

things you can do when it comes to giving gifts to

11:16

your family members or your friends. But Christmas

11:18

is also just an expensive like day

11:20

and like couple of days. Like all the planning are like

11:22

lunch is expensive, food

11:24

is expensive. So there are some things you can

11:26

do there. Like you could always do the classic bring a plate.

11:29

I've never done it, but I always say it looks like so much fun.

11:31

Just like, you know, everyone that's coming. Just like

11:33

tell them to bring a meal. And as long

11:35

as you don't all tell them to bring the same meal, you probably

11:37

have quite a good little Christmas spread.

11:39

Yeah, a little potluck party. You know,

11:41

somebody you do the protein, you do the

11:43

salad, you do the veg, you do dessert,

11:46

you do the cheeses. I think that can

11:48

work out really well. And that sort of takes the pressure

11:50

off the host, whoever's hosting Christmas

11:54

to incur all the expense.

11:56

Because like we know that grocery prices,

11:58

the one of the things that are a real pain

12:00

point for people, you know, various supply

12:03

interruptions. So just yeah, the food

12:05

related costs of Christmas are

12:07

so big. I like that idea.

12:10

And even, you know, when it comes to managing

12:12

that costs, I would say, you know, so it doesn't

12:14

just come in one big shop on Christmas

12:17

Eve trying to sort of be purchasing

12:19

some of the food and, you know, the nonperishable

12:22

stuff. Look for

12:24

the proteins. You know, if you have

12:26

all this, I don't think you can freeze prawns

12:28

or can you? But, you.

12:29

Know, you can freeze prawns.

12:31

You know, it's like buying some of that protein,

12:33

you know, in advance. You know, if

12:35

you can find some specials and then freeze

12:38

it. So just getting ready for the day

12:40

so that it's not all going to be this $500

12:43

shop that you do on Christmas

12:45

Eve because you got people coming round, getting

12:48

ahead of it and being aware of

12:50

it. I guess either way we're

12:52

going to eat. And I think with Christmas this year,

12:54

like we all due a little bit of celebration.

12:57

So we advice that we're giving, you

12:59

know, do have a nice Christmas this

13:01

year, everyone, because you've earned it.

13:04

Absolutely.

13:05

I know. But but I

13:07

also love the vibe in the spirit of just keeping

13:09

the costs low and remembering what it's all

13:11

about, which is spending time with people and having

13:14

some nice food. But you don't have to have the

13:16

fanciest of everything.

13:18

Yeah, and especially if you like, you feel like a loyalty

13:20

points order. You know, your everyday rewards,

13:22

your flybuys. This is a great time to sort of cash.

13:25

I mean, I realized that I had 20 bucks sitting on my flybuys

13:27

I had no idea how I'd entered or when to

13:29

get used. It was fantastic.

13:32

You know, these sort of things, they just they just accumulate so

13:34

good time to cash in that sort of stuff and

13:36

also do things like cashback

13:39

websites are really great and you know, you're a fan

13:41

of those. Yes.

13:42

Yeah, I am. And this applies to gift giving

13:44

as well. You know, you go

13:46

into sites or apps like Cash

13:48

Rewards or Shopback and

13:50

you check the retailer, but you're going to you're

13:52

about to go to and see if there's like a 20%

13:55

cashback. And then, you know, you're essentially

13:57

reducing the cost of what you're about to buy

14:00

and getting access to some discounts that might not

14:02

be available in-store.

14:04

So, yeah, you know, that is all

14:06

that all adds up to them as as

14:09

we know.

14:09

Oh, it does all add up. And my,

14:11

my last little tip of this was just something that I really

14:14

enjoy doing is reusing

14:16

like the wrapping paper that you've gotten from like

14:18

previous gifts. My family's big on this.

14:21

I think we've got a vibe going on here. It's

14:23

a vibe of just thinking

14:25

laterally, recycling where you

14:27

can keeping the costs down and sort of

14:29

making it a cheerful, a cheap

14:31

but cheerful Christmas for 2022, I think

14:34

is in order.

14:34

Yeah. And then in terms of like, like I post

14:37

Christmas stuff, I think, you know, thinking about the

14:39

amount of money you spend on Christmas doesn't necessarily stop at

14:41

Christmas. Like obviously extends to something like Boxing

14:43

Day because it's like a, you know,

14:45

a time honored Aussie tradition to go absolutely

14:47

hog wild at Boxing Day sales and just

14:49

go and, you know, go into Myer and buy half the

14:51

store, which you like obviously is a lot of fun.

14:53

But I think it's like you can also just like not

14:56

do that and just chill out a bit, right?

14:58

Like interesting this year to see because there's

15:00

always that footage that they run along with

15:02

people who've camped out and those that run

15:04

through the doors. I wonder if

15:07

that will happen this year because like the expectations

15:09

is that people will be spending big

15:11

for Christmas, but we're all aware that we're

15:13

heading into 2023 with higher mortgages

15:16

and cost of living. BE I

15:18

wonder how crazy will go in the sales.

15:21

The advice would be don't.

15:23

Say anything else just on your on your list, considering

15:25

your you're the great budgeting guru.

15:27

Yes. The 100% is. I

15:29

would just urge people where we've only just

15:31

started December. If you haven't done

15:33

all your spending just yet, it

15:36

would be so powerful for you to

15:38

keep a list like Santa of

15:40

all the stuff that you're buying.

15:42

So we've discussed, you know, Christmas spending.

15:45

It's it's the food, it's the travel,

15:47

it's the wrapping paper, it's the cards, it's the

15:49

decorations. Like the amount

15:51

of money we can spend at this time of the year is quite

15:53

astounding. If you keep a list of

15:55

everything that you spend, you

15:57

can then tally it up and go, Well, my family

16:00

Christmas costs, like, say, if it's 1200

16:02

dollars, I know that now

16:05

and then maybe next year I can set

16:07

aside. That would be a. Hundred dollars per

16:09

month, and that will smooth

16:11

out, you know, you can essentially save for Christmas

16:14

in advance without having to do one of those,

16:16

you know, online, you know, save

16:18

up for a hamper things. You know, you you look

16:20

after future you and say,

16:22

I know Christmas comes every year

16:25

and it's always a bit financially tight for me.

16:28

And I also think that keeping a track of your spending

16:30

can help you to keep a lid on the spending as well. If

16:32

you realize, oh, hey, wait a minute, we're up

16:34

to $800 that I've spent to you know, if you're managing

16:36

a big your family, you know, just that process

16:38

of being mindful of what we are spending

16:41

at this time of year because, you know, we

16:43

all want to have a YOLO kind of Christmas. And,

16:45

you know, but, you know, we've got those budgetary

16:48

pressures that we're coming up to. So what? This is what

16:50

I do. I have like a little worksheet

16:52

where I, you know, I figure out Christmas presents

16:54

for who wrapping whatever the costs

16:57

are going to be. And I split it up and I save

16:59

for it throughout the year. And I make sure that I don't invest

17:01

that money or put it somewhere else. It's waiting

17:03

there for me to go. And that has really helped to

17:05

reduce the stress around Christmas spending,

17:08

which is one of those big lumpy sort of spending periods.

17:10

So tracking spending people and

17:12

yeah, hopefully even if you are feeling the stress

17:14

this year, you can come up with a bit more of an

17:16

action plan for 2023.

17:19

So our listener question this week comes from

17:21

David, who's following on from last week's

17:23

episode that we did on private health insurance

17:25

and something that we didn't get time to mention in that

17:27

episode was lifetime health cover

17:29

loading. Just do you want to talk through about what

17:32

that is and why people need to know about it?

17:33

Yeah. This is actually a really important

17:36

one and I'm glad that we get a chance to

17:38

raise it. Now, if you're looking at whether to

17:40

take up private health insurance, something

17:42

that is really relevant for people at

17:44

about the age of 30 is to consider

17:47

whether they that is the point where you want to take out

17:49

the cover, because if you don't for every

17:51

year after your 30, there

17:54

is a lifetime health cover loading

17:56

that starts to apply to your premiums. If

17:58

you subsequently then do take out

18:00

private health insurance. And that kicks

18:02

in at a rate of 2% loading

18:05

on top of your premium for every year aged

18:07

over 30. So by the time you're

18:09

40, if you were to take out private health insurance

18:12

and had not had it previously, you could be

18:14

paying an extra 20% per

18:16

year of the cost of your premiums.

18:18

And that would apply to you for a ten

18:20

year period. So it can

18:22

really hit people who don't

18:25

have the cover from age 30. And it's

18:27

designed to encourage people to get the

18:29

cover from the age of 30 and to keep it.

18:31

But yeah, you can really be hit with some

18:34

higher premium costs if you don't have it. I

18:36

would just say that for people who, you

18:38

know, it's it's there to scare you into getting private

18:40

health insurance if you're below the Medicare

18:42

levy thresholds where you're not going to be slugged

18:44

extra tax for not having private health insurance.

18:47

And if you're never going to want private

18:49

health insurance, don't be scared by this into

18:51

taking it out, because then you'll be paying

18:53

for premiums that you don't want and you

18:55

don't need. And so it is a calculation

18:57

for everyone to sort of think about. And some

19:00

people may not want to take out private

19:02

health insurance until they're 60.

19:04

So you could have 30 years of

19:06

paying no health insurance premiums.

19:09

Yes. When you're 60, you'd be slugged

19:11

with a much higher you know, your premiums

19:13

might not be $1,000 a year. They could be

19:16

closer to $2,000. But you

19:18

can do the sums. For some people, you

19:20

may still be better off by just not

19:22

having the cover when you didn't need it and then

19:24

wearing the higher lifetime health cover

19:26

loading for the ten years until

19:28

it drops off. It is something for people to

19:30

be aware of and have a little Google

19:32

about whether that would apply to you. If you're someone

19:34

who you don't have cover now, you're getting

19:36

to your late twenties, early

19:39

thirties. Maybe it might be worth

19:41

looking at whether you do want to get the cover just a

19:43

couple of years earlier to avoid paying

19:45

that. And just finally,

19:47

I want to give you a budget tip of the week, as I

19:49

always do. I came across this really

19:52

interesting finding, a US survey

19:54

of people about their subscriptions, and people

19:56

were asked like, how much do you think you

19:58

spend each month on subscriptions? And

20:01

the average response was like way

20:04

under what they actually spent. They sort of

20:06

estimated, I think I spent about $86.

20:08

That would be US dollars. But actually, when

20:10

they got people to go through and fess

20:13

up and look at this site, this is how much they actually

20:15

spend. It was more like $219.

20:18

So basically, people have absolutely no clue

20:20

how many subscriptions they've got. And

20:22

42% of people have

20:25

found subscriptions that they just had forgotten

20:27

that they were doing. So subscription

20:30

costs. My number one tip is to cancel

20:32

your subscriptions as soon as you get them.

20:34

So some of them this doesn't work because they

20:36

then cancel the product. But most of them

20:38

you say, okay, well, I'm signing up.

20:40

Okay, you're forcing me to give you the credit card details.

20:43

But after this month, I really I'm

20:46

not sure I'm going to want it. You just sign

20:48

up and cancel straightaway. And that's a little love

20:50

letter to future you to say

20:52

this is going to cut out after a month.

20:54

And if you still want it, you can sign back up again.

20:57

But otherwise, he's a subscription

20:59

that I'm not just going to forget about and have on going

21:01

for the rest of my life. So just cancel

21:04

straight away.

21:05

I got a little sub tip for this is getting

21:07

a bank account or a banking app

21:10

that notifies you when money

21:12

goes in or out of your account. I just

21:15

I feel like this should be standard. I know a lot of banks

21:17

don't do it, but like the bank that I'm with, you

21:19

know, any time I get debited for anything,

21:21

I get a notification on my phone that says, you know, $17

21:24

has been taken out of your account for full membership

21:26

or whatever like that. And it's great because you never

21:28

have any surprise subscription costs because you

21:30

see everything that's happening. And if something

21:32

pops up that goes like and you get a notification, be

21:34

like, you know, 20 bucks is taken out of this. Be like, oh, you know, I'm

21:36

still subscribed to that. And you go and cancel it. So there's no

21:39

there's no surprises when you open up your bank account

21:41

because everything's you're being notified about everything.

21:43

That's great. I usually hate notifications

21:45

on those things, like you got an Instagram message,

21:47

whatever. I have them turned off. But yeah, you

21:49

should know if money's coming out of your account.

21:51

Absolutely.

21:52

Merry Christmas, everyone. I guess just to

21:55

wrap that up, keep it cheap and cheerful this

21:57

year would be our overall advice.

21:59

You know, look. Look for some lateral ways

22:01

to have fun this Christmas. Thanks,

22:03

Jim, as always. Merry Christmas to you.

22:06

Merry Christmas. And I'll see you next week.

22:07

See you next week.

22:14

This episode of It All Adds Up was produced by

22:16

Chai Wang. The information discussed

22:19

is general in nature and does not take into account

22:21

your personal financial situation, goals

22:23

or objectives. You should always do your own

22:25

research or get professional advice before

22:27

making any major financial decisions. If

22:30

you like today's episode, hit follow a new podcast

22:32

app. Leave a review and recommend it to all your

22:34

friends. You can also submit your listener questions

22:36

in text or audio form at.

22:39

It all adds up at 9:00 PM today.

22:42

Thanks for listening.