Money date No. 14: all I bought for Christmas

Gift-giving anxiety, holiday time off and scheming for the new year

My holiday break-ish starts tomorrow, and You Don’t Need a Budget will be released in five days (hence the “ish”)!

I’m fully wrung out from book promotion — I love talking about this stuff, but also, it turns out performing for strangers and having super in-depth intellectual conversations about an entire cultural paradigm is… exhausting. I’ll welcome my week off, a little traveling and time with family, even though I know a portion of my brain will remain trained on the book launch all week.

Any space left I’ll dedicate to scheming for the new year. I’m excited to tackle the work and money questions this’ll bring up. And I love using days off to envision what I want to do next!

📗 Below the paywall, I shout out my friend Kathy Oneto’s Sustainable Ambition 12-Month Workbook + Planner that’s helping me do this. Adding that plug up here, too, to give her a little more visibility and because I think it’s a great guide for any New Year reflection and planning you’re doing right now!

✨ Plus: I’ve been able to write about preparing your finances for Trump’s final term and answer some of the questions you’ve asked since I published this post on preparing our finances for a fascist regime.

• CNET: Here's What a Second Trump Term Means for Inflation, Taxes and Student Loans

• Salon: Top 5 questions about investing, retirement planning under Trump

• Also coming to CNET (pending editor holiday time off!) — a deeper dive into the possible fate of student loan forgiveness and repayment programs.

I’m planning an event in the new year to bring this whole conversation into one place, so keep your questions coming! I’ll let you know more about that once details are set.

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💡 Inspired by a Healthy Rich contributor, a money date is an exercise I crafted for You Don’t Need a Budget. Subscribers can follow along in a private space after the paywall, and I encourage you to steal my questions to guide your own reflections!

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Order You Don’t Need a Budget

What’s the most joyful thing you did with money this week?