This time of year can be one of the most expensive and challenging for families living on one income. Singe mom and author of “The Feminist Financial Handbook,” Brynne Conroy shares her inspiring story plus tips you can use year-round to minimize holiday financial stress. From setting money aside every month, to using financial wellness tools that help you budget, Brynne and Eric are covering it all on today’s Good Cents by Payactiv episode. 

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Listen below or read the transcript that follows.

Eric Rosenberg:

Hello everyone. Welcome back to The Good Cents by Payactiv Podcast. As a reminder, today’s episode is not financial advice and is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Thank you.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to The Good Cents by Payactiv podcast. As always, I am your host, Eric Rosenberg. I am very excited about today’s guest because she has such an inspiring story and extremely useful financial tips for one of those most expensive and beloved times of the year, and that of course is the holidays. So Brynne is a former homeless and living in poverty single mother. She turned her life around with a side hustle and other income sources and worked her way out of poverty. So she has been there in the most challenging budget situations as a single mom.

And this year she gives tips that anyone can use, but specifically single parents living on one income on how they can budget and plan and save for the holidays while still giving their families and themselves that ideal Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanza or whatever it is you’re celebrating. So we’re going to dive in right now with my friend Brynne Conroy to talk about budgeting and savings tips for the holiday season. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I am excited to be here with the woman of the Hour. Brynne Conroy. Welcome to the Payactiv podcast. We’re so excited to have you here.

Brynne Conroy:

I’m so excited to be here. Thanks, Eric.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah. So Brynne and I have known each other a while. We go way back as comrades in online writing and today we are going to chat all about holiday budgeting and savings tips. And she has some special insights here. She is a single parent herself, so she can offer special tips for single parents because we know it’s a little harder or a lot harder if you only have one income and you’re trying to cover fun presents and every kid wants that super expensive thing these days, whatever they’re into. And it’s not always that easy. So thank you for being here to share your wisdom with us.

Brynne Conroy:

Yeah. I’m excited. I’m excited.

Eric Rosenberg:

So before we dive in, I know you have a great story of rebuilding your finances. Please if you’re willing to share, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up as a money expert?

Brynne Conroy:

Yeah. I actually started writing about money when I didn’t have a whole lot of it. I was living below the poverty line. I was expecting my first child and I realized that I needed to fix the whole income problem very quickly. So I found some ways to make money real quick. I found a way to go back to school on grants and scholarships. I actually got paid to go back to school rather than going into student debt. And ultimately the writing thing took off. So I ended up doing that as a full-time career. But it started out as just providing these basic tips and steps on ways that you can save money, ways you can bring in money, especially when you’re living a little bit closer to that low income level.

Eric Rosenberg:

It’s a really inspiring story. If you have a chance after, listeners, definitely Google Brynne and read about her and follow her in all the places. She’s awesome. But today we’re going to talk, as we said about those budgeting and savings tips for the holidays. We know, as we said, the holidays are really expensive and I know personally I’m into really expensive electronics. I know there’s some people out there who like those purses and shoes and things like that, but that doesn’t always mean because I’m into it, doesn’t mean it’s always in my budget.

So how do you approach budgeting as a single parent? What are your first steps when you’re getting ready to plan for the holidays?

Brynne Conroy:

Definitely. So I think it all goes back to even before the holidays, which is the unfortunate thing I’m going to tell you guys today. It’s not super helpful for this year. But as the holidays wrap up and you’re planning for next year, once January rolls around, I like to set weekly budgeting meetings with myself just to keep on top of my budget throughout the year. A lot of times we hear people tell couples to do that, sit down once a month, biweekly, once a week and talk with your partner about your money. Since I’ve been a single parent, I found that that’s really important for me to just make sure I intentionally do that myself.

When I’m budgeting, one of my biggest rules is,, I call it this golden rule of budgeting and it’s budget liberally and spend conservatively. And what that means is, let’s say that I think I need a grand for Christmas to make everybody happy and buy gifts for everybody in the family and have all the experiences, I might bump that budget up to 1,200 or 1,500. And hopefully I don’t need that extra two to 500 bucks. But that way as the holiday season rolls in and I start spending more money on things like convenience spending or feel obligated to donate to the kids’ school fundraiser or whatever is going on, that extra money is built into the budget already, so it’s there.

And then obviously spend conservatively just means look for those deals, shop with coupons, do all of the smart money-saving things that we all usually do. And that way also if you find that, oh no, I don’t have enough money, you also have a lot more time to make the extra cash to side hustle or do whatever you need to do to bring in the extra money.

With the holidays in particular, this is the thing that probably you were going to wish you heard last January. But my biggest thing that I do is I shop throughout the year because we do see a whole lot of concentrated great deals right around Black Friday.

But then we also see great deals throughout the year. They’re sprinkled throughout. They’re not as concentrated. You’re not going to find them in every single store every single day. But as I find great deals throughout the year, I’ll pick stuff up and I have this Christmas box that’ll stick stuff in to store the presents until the holidays come. And that way in November and December, I don’t have to run around like a crazy person trying to find every last item on that list.

Another way that you could approach that is let’s say I wanted to save $1,200 for the holidays. I could then just save $100 a month, so that’s $25 a week. And that way I’m prepared and I have the money so that when Black Friday rolls around, I’m not scrounging up extra cash that doesn’t exist. I already have it there and it’s ready for me.  

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah. But I really like that outlook on planning throughout the year, putting away a little bit at a time. It’s also really eye-opening to think, oh, if I’m spending $1,200 on holiday gifts, breaking it down to that $100 a month or $25 a week or $50 a pay period, however that works out the way you think about money I think can be so helpful. So you might look at that number and be like, wow, I don’t want to spend $25 a week on holiday gifts for these people. I’m going to cut that down to $15 a week and find a way to make the shopping happen within that budget.

So it’s up to you. Remember, you’re in charge of your budget. It’s not in charge of you. The numbers just all have to add up, so be thoughtful as you put that together. And I also loved, I have to throw in a personal one here. When you mentioned buying early, I use an app that just plugs into my browser on my computer that tracks prices of certain items and wishlists and watch lists around the web. And in October there was a deal that popped up for something I wanted to buy my mom and my sister and my brother-in-law for the holidays.

So just like you said, I bought it right then. I clicked the button and it shipped to their houses and I called them actually or texted them and said, there’s a box coming to your house. For my mom. It said, mom, Hanukkah present and then last name Rosenberg. So she knew not to open it early and she stuck it in the back of the closet and when Hanukkah rolls around, there she’ll go. She’ll open it up and her present’s there and I got a really good deal buying it two months early.

Brynne Conroy:

I love it. I love it.

Eric Rosenberg:

So anyway, let’s keep going. Sorry I interrupted with my tangents. That’s what happens when I get excited about money.

Brynne Conroy:

No. No. It’s cool. It’s cool. That was another thing I was going to say is say you have something you buy everyone every year. I get everyone in our family photo calendars or whatever, and so it’s something that I know is coming. So I kind of have a pulse on when those deals come out. So I track kind of Shutterfly and Snapfish and by combining their deals right around this time of year, I’m able to get them “buy one, get one free” essentially. And so if there’s those things that you know I’m going to buy family anyways, it’s kind of a tradition. Just knowing those deals is a great idea too.

I also sites like the Crazy Coupon Lady is a pretty good one. They track the Black Friday deals for you and you can sign up for just like you were saying, notifications when the item that you want or the store that you want is having a great sale. Anything you can do to maximize the savings this time of year is just real smart.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, there’s an app, a browser or an app, I guess you could call it, a plugin that I use. It works for any Chrome, I think, or Firefox or Safari, any browser out there, it’s called Honey. And at the checkout page I click a button and it will cycle through coupon codes that it knows about from all those different coupon websites that are really annoying to use but sometimes save you a lot of money. So you can save a few steps, click a button with Honey, and I’ve saved many hundreds of dollars using that. I couldn’t tell you how many, but it’s been great.

So if you can use that. There’s similar ones too, I think one called Wiki Buy or might be called Capital One, Money Saving, something right now. There’s a few different brands that have apps like that, but definitely check it out. Don’t shop without a coupon at a website that has a coupon code box without at least Googling it.

Brynne Conroy:

Definitely. Definitely. Another way that I like to cut down two is just kind of cutting expectations at that extended family level, just bringing those down a notch. I feel like especially when you’re a single parent, like you were saying, you’ve only got the one income coming in. So all of the spending comes kind of falls on your shoulder. One thing that we do is we’ll DIY gifts from our kids to the grownups and when they’re real little, those can be super cutesy like we’re making Christmas or Hanukkah decorations out of hand prints or whatever.

And those can be really fun keepsakes. As they get older though, they can still DIY their own gifts. You just have to get more creative with it. Maybe they record a message or do something online, maybe they do some type of family research project and they share that with the family. There’s all kinds of things you can do just to help your kids kind of contribute to the holidays as well. And it doesn’t have to be with cash, it can just be with their own talents, so

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, I love that being the creative approaches. Always think outside the box. Don’t feel like you have to do what you’ve always done or what other people have always done. Traditions are fun, but new traditions have to start somewhere. One thing that I have one friend who always likes to do holiday gifts with most of his friends and we live near each other and I said, “Let’s stop buying each other gifts and make a plan around the holidays to go to lunch. And that’ll be our gift is that we’ll have this time together and we’ll have a fun time and we’ll chat and we’ll get caught up and we’ll carve that time out specifically once a year.”

And that was way cheaper than buying a gift to just buy myself a drink and lunch. So, that’s one way I save money with one friend. But every friend, every family member, be creative, be thoughtful about … Being thoughtful to a lot of people means more than money, so be thoughtful.

Brynne Conroy:

Definitely. Definitely. I love that. And another thing you can do, especially with extended family, I feel like there’s a lot of pressure to buy everybody gifts. I have a relatively small gift-giving extended family, but I know some people who have 20 people on their list to buy for and something I’ve seen people implement that’s really fun, it’s kind of akin to that. Instead of everybody buying a gift for each other, they’ll set up a secret santa or whatever the equivalent is. And what that is essentially I buy a gift for my mom. My mom buys a gift for her uncle.

The uncle buys a gift for the cousin and that way everyone’s just buying one gift, but everyone still gets something really cool whenever the holiday rolls around.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, that’s great. I also like white elephant exchanges where everyone buys a gift worth up to a certain amount like say $20 and you go around the circle picking favorites, and you can steal from each other. It’s a fun way to do gift-giving without spending a lot of money.

Brynne Conroy:

Definitely.

Eric Rosenberg:

The best thing that I have ever brought to a white elephant exchange, I have to toot my horn, is a pro wrestling championship belt. Everyone wanted that one. That was a good one.

Brynne Conroy:

That is a good one.

Eric Rosenberg:

From the kids section at the toy store, of course.

Brynne Conroy:

Nice. I think I have a whole box of gifts that they were really nice. I just have enough holiday decorations. And so whenever someone gives me a holiday decoration or just something really weird that I think would be funny at a white elephant party, I put it in that box. So I actually already have it and I don’t even have to spend money on it. I can just go to my special white elephant box and pull out the gift ready to give.

Eric Rosenberg:

You are a pro white elephant re-gifter and that is-

Brynne Conroy:

I am.

Eric Rosenberg:

That is some game right there. So what’s next on your tips list?

Brynne Conroy:

My next thing is just especially when you’re a single parent is to accept help when it’s offered. I think that it’s really hard for us to admit that we need help. There’s a lot of pressure on us to do it on our own. But around this time of year, I feel like especially if you have kids, you want to put your kids first. Your kids aren’t going to benefit from you going into debt. Your kids are going to benefit from you being financially stable.

So let’s say grandma offers to pitch in on one of those bigger gifts, accept her help and put her name on the tag with yours. Another thing that happens around this time of year is those charity trees where there will be ornaments on the tree and they’re buying kids “in need” some gifts. If someone approaches you for one of those, it’s real easy to take it as an insult at first. It’s real easy to take it like, oh, you think I can’t provide for myself? I’m just the charity case of the community. No, I don’t need your help.

When in reality, you’re racking up credit card debt to pay for all of that stuff for Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanza or whatever holiday you’re celebrating. And those things are anonymous usually. So I would say just accept the help and even put the boring stuff on there. Maybe your kid needs a coat, boots, gloves. That way the boring stuff can be from that version of Santa and you can put the cool stuff under your name so you’re still the cool parent, still giving the fun gifts. Another thing to think about this time of year, if you are making an income where you qualify for government programs, usually those take a really long time to get approved for.

Usually, that’s an extremely long process and it’s complicated and you have to submit it four or five times. But there’s two this year that I want to point out that could help free up some extra cash really quick. The first is the Affordable Connectivity Program and that helps you get internet $30 to $75 off depending on where you live. The people that I’ve had apply for this program have applied for the credit and gotten it within 24 to 48 hours reflected on their bill. It’s incredibly fast. So that’s, I mean, either 30 to 60 bucks depending on when you apply that you can now add to your Christmas budget.

Another program, this is going to vary from state to state how quick they are at this, but a lot of states during the pandemic and even just within the past few months have raised their income limits for SNAP or food stamps. And here in Pennsylvania at least, I’ve had readers get approved in like five days. I’m not sure that that’s going to be true across the country. But with the cost of food right now, if you can get extra help paying that grocery bill, that can even be a couple hundred dollars that frees up in your budget very quickly.

Most other government programs are going to take a really long time to access that help though.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah. With the bite from inflation, if you’re hosting holiday meals and that is definitely a big financial burden that you are bearing. So if you’re buying turkey or a ham or who knows what else, all the sides, that could add up real fast. That’s a lot of money. So also take advantage when people offer to bring something. Definitely have them bring sides, desserts, all that good stuff to help ease that burden. Because especially as with inflation, every trip to the grocery store is more painful and we’ll all see that these holidays more than we’ve seen in a long time.

Brynne Conroy:

Yeah. And the final thing I want to touch on really quick is just credit. Because real life, even if you use all of these strategies and take all of the help and do all of the savings things, you still might have a gap in your budget. Ideally, I would encourage people to not use credit to fund the holidays, but I’m also going to be realistic and I know some of you want to have all the gifts for your kids under the tree and you’re going to do it anyways. So there is a couple things that I would recommend just to be super smart about it.

The first is to watch out for we’ve seen a rise in buy now pay later programs. You’ll even see this at stores like Walmart. Some of these programs are okay. They spread your payments out over three or four months and they charge you zero interest. I know the program at Walmart, they actually charge credit card rate interest. So before you sign up for any of those programs, make sure you know what you’re doing and if you’re paying more than 0% interest, it’s probably not a good program. It’s not worth bankrupting yourself in January and February just so that you can access those toys or whatever those gifts may be today.

I feel like that’s a big one for people to look out for because I think like 2021 and 2022, I’ve really seen these programs kind of proliferate in a way that they haven’t before. And at checkout, that’s not the time to read through the pamphlet and the fine print. You’re not going to be able to make a well-educated decision. So if you do think you’re going to use one of those programs, research them at home first to make sure you fully understand what you’re signing your name to. Another good thing that I love that Payactiv does actually is if you sign up with them, you can access your pay a little bit earlier as an hourly worker.

And that’s a really great alternative because that doesn’t come with interest. It just gives you access to your money today and then you don’t have debt to pay off tomorrow. So that’s another really great alternative to using some of these buy now pay later programs or even swiping a credit card.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, we’ve talked about interest rates in the past. We had an episode not too long ago with a guest Miranda Marquit, where we talked about payday loans and the exorbitantly high-interest rates they charge. So definitely don’t use those to pay for holiday gifts. If you haven’t listened to that one, definitely go back and check it out. But yeah, this was great. Thank you so much, Brynne. It is really important, as we said, for people to think about all the different ways that their finances add up. And I like just how you came out from the gate with the multi-pronged approach.

Think about saving early and budgeting throughout the year and buying early when you can, so you don’t have that big hit all at once. You’re not paying this giant lump sum one time in the year or needing to reach for that credit card to do it. So thank you so much. Those were all wonderful tips and great advice. So if anyone wants to connect with you, if they want to learn more from of what you have to say, where should they go?

Brynne Conroy:

Yeah, you can find me at my website, femmefrugality.com. I also wrote a book that you can find on Amazon called The Feminist Financial Handbook. It covers this kind of stuff, not just for the holidays but throughout the entire year. I’m also the co-host of a podcast called Mom Autism Money, so you can find me there as well.

Eric Rosenberg:

Awesome. Yeah. Those are all great resources. I’ve checked them all out myself and personally recommend them. So thank you very much for coming and sharing with us today and have a great rest of your week.

Brynne Conroy:

Thank you so much. You too.

Eric Rosenberg:

Wow. Those were some great tips and I had a lot of fun talking to Brynne. I hope you had just as much fun listening. As we talked, I started thinking about all the different ways the Payactiv app and Payactiv card could help you with your holiday budgeting. For example, the Payactiv app and card, if you use them together, there is a savings feature where you could automatically put away that $100 a month or $25 a week, whatever automatic savings plan you want to be on so that cash is there and ready with your Payactiv card for the holidays so you don’t feel that pain of that big lump sum cost we talked about.

If you haven’t already joined, make sure to check out Payactiv, that’s P-A-Y-A-C-T-I-V, in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and download today to get started. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful holiday season and we’ll talk to you next time. Until then, keep on living that life you’ve earned. Bye-bye.

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