Kathi (00:01.084)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter Free Academy where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. And I am here with the co -hostess with the mostest, it is Tonya Kubo. Hey Tonya.

Tonya Kubo (00:47.113)

Yay!

Tonya Kubo (01:08.736)

Hey, Kathy.

Kathi (01:10.444)

I’m excited about today’s episode. feel like as we’re planning ahead, nothing makes me feel like so smart as planning ahead, as pre -deciding, as getting decisions out of the way so that August Kathi is a hero in November Kathi’s eyes. And that’s what we’re gonna do for each of our listeners today. So I’m gonna turn it over to you because my excitement is gonna spill out so much. not even.

Let’s just admit it, I had trouble doing the intro today. I was so excited about this.

Tonya Kubo (01:43.165)

I was just saying, you’re so excited that you have 400 words trying to come out of your mouth at the same

Kathi (01:48.873)

All at the same time, but let’s let’s dive in. Let’s do

Tonya Kubo (01:52.954)

Okay, so what we’re actually talking about is Christmas. And if you are like me, I was gonna say, if you’re grinchy like I am, you’re like, seriously, what is this? But here is something that I know from several years of leading Clutterfree Academy and our Clutterfree for Life membership program, Kathy, and that is that we cluttery people have a true biological need

Kathi (01:58.737)

Yes! Yay! In August!

Tonya Kubo (02:22.22)

to plan to plan. See, Christmas planning in October is about two months too late for most of us.

Kathi (02:29.754)

It really is for us cluttering friends, yes.

Tonya Kubo (02:33.346)

So what we are going to do is this is a two part episode, I believe, and we are going to be it has to be because because I wrote out 10 tips and you wrote out 10 tips and that’s 20 and we’re only going to give you 10 folks. We’re only going to give you 10. So can we just get started, Kathi? I want you to jump right in with what is your first tip when it comes to making a decision in August to have a stress free

Kathi (02:37.892)

Yes, it has to

Kathi (02:42.49)

Yeah

Kathi (02:46.606)

Right.

Kathi (02:57.112)

Okay, so this may sound so basic and for some of you, this is just gonna be a check mark because you’re gonna say, I host Christmas every year on the 24th and 25th and how awesome to have a life that is that perfectly ordered. But for many of us, that is not our reality because we have in -laws, out -laws, blended families, divorced families, all of that kind of thing. So I would implore

to nail down what you’re celebrating, when you’re celebrating, and where you’re celebrating. So for us, we often don’t celebrate Thanksgiving just because we have four kids, some of them work retail, some of them, you know, they all have these schedules where it’s really hard for them to get away from work. And so we just say, you know what, stay with your families in the Bay Area and we’ll do something fun later

So we don’t really worry about Thanksgiving so much, but sometimes we’ll have friends or other family over and that’s great. But Christmas, Christmas needs to be decided. It’s great if it’s decided a year in advance. We often have everybody show up with their little phones and figure out dates. But if we can’t decide a year in advance, August is when you should be doing that. Because if you

If you have other adults coming to your house or you’re going to theirs, I think four months is a really good timeframe to start nailing all that down. makes a lot of sense. And we have one of our kids who’s like, I can’t plan that far in advance. I’m like, well, if you get a better offer, you go for it. But the rest of us, we need to know. So, you know, he’s never planned an adult family function in his life. So it’s okay.

Tonya Kubo (04:32.928)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (04:51.667)

Right, right well then

Kathi (04:52.452)

So what do you guys

Tonya Kubo (04:55.328)

Well, so we actually are the, how do I put this? Like we can’t, we have a core member of the family that will not be able to tell us when they can celebrate Christmas until sometime around December 15th and they are typically the host. So yeah, so we spent several years not spending Christmas or any holiday with family. We did friend.

Kathi (05:08.367)

Yes.

Kathi (05:13.596)

wow!

Tonya Kubo (05:22.486)

We had some friends and we would just spend holidays with them because they had a similar lifestyle to us. They needed to plan several months in advance. And so we would just book it out. But then as the kids get older, right, it’s harder to like explain why we’re not spending Christmas and Thanksgiving with aunts and uncles and grandparents and all of that stuff. So we try to be fluid, but to some degree there’s like, I can only be so fluid, right?

Kathi (05:49.742)

Right, right. Yeah, and I think that that’s okay to say this is what I’m able to do. So what I do in August, if I haven’t done it already, is say, here is the date range of when you can come hang out with us, and here’s the one day that if you can make it work great. If you can’t, let us know now. But if I don’t hear from you in the next few days, I’m going forward, no turning back.

to get that planted so other people can make their plans, so they can do their shop, so they can do all of that kind of stuff. They can figure out their New Year’s plans. Like we’re celebrating as a family the day after Christmas through the next couple of days. you’ve heard me give this advice a thousand times. You can have everybody celebrate together. You can celebrate on the actual date.

you can have people be happy about it. Pick two out of three. And my preference is to have us all together and people to be happy about it. I don’t care if it’s happening on the actual date, but if you can get that nailed down as soon as possible, I think that that is a really smart thing to

Tonya Kubo (06:58.892)

Mm -hmm. Right.

Tonya Kubo (07:09.082)

Awesome. Okay. So that is really good advice. You covered both the importance of ahead, but also how to handle it when it’s sticky, which is something I appreciate because of course, just because you have a need to plan ahead doesn’t mean everybody else has a need. What would be your second

Kathi (07:24.066)

Right. Okay, so while you’re getting together the date and the time and where, know, whose house it’s going to be at, I think it’s all really great to have that conversation about gift exchange. You know, maybe you guys already have a family or friends tradition that is, but also we had kids who were growing into adults and wanted to set the expectation

Tonya Kubo (07:50.348)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (07:53.852)

Early that hey, we don’t need 75 gifts from anybody, but also maybe as you guys get older We don’t need to give you 75 gifts So we’re pretty much at the place where we do three gifts for everybody except we have one teenager in our family And I’m like no we’re gonna buy her the things that she wants and so to just set that expectation also to set expectation with young adults about You know you do get your grandmother a gift

Come on, be a good human being. Like they, you know, they don’t know sometimes because they’ve always had mom and dad take care of it. And so is there, do you need to pull back on some of that? Maybe because somebody in the family is having some financial constraints. You know, what taking the temperature in August is better than announcing in December what you’re going to do. So do you have like

Tonya Kubo (08:23.82)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (08:48.609)

right.

Kathi (08:50.256)

family code when it comes to gift exchange or is it a free for

Tonya Kubo (08:54.723)

Well, so it’s been a free for all for years and this last year the extended family one of the cousins reached out and was just like it’s ridiculous. I do not want to carry all that stuff home ever again. And so they do a trellis. do a bowling day. In lieu of a gift. So everybody goes and bowls for half a day and then they go to somebody’s house and has dinner.

Kathi (09:07.567)

Yeah.

Kathi (09:11.92)

Mmm. Okay.

Tonya Kubo (09:19.49)

And that’s what they do. And the kids love it. It’s so much better than going home with 32 different bags that they can’t remember who gave them what. It’s just so much more

Kathi (09:30.106)

Yeah, you know, Tonya, you and I both have given birth to children who like to open gifts like that. That’s a big part of what they like. And I don’t want to take that away from them. But to be able to do an experience like that, I think that that is tremendous. And especially if that’s like a cool cousin or aunt or uncle, like, you know, then the kid that’s you’re forming core memories there. That is so, so, so

Tonya Kubo (09:36.096)

Yes.

Tonya Kubo (09:54.995)

Right. And of course, I mean, they still get Christmas gifts here. They still get presents at our house, right? It’s just not having that overwhelming

Kathi (09:59.364)

Yes. Yes.

Yes. I love it. I also think this is a good idea to start kind of putting in your mind when people ask you what you would like for Christmas to start coming up with that list, start making decisions and keeping track. If you’re the parent, maybe keeping track of some of the things that your kids have mentioned and to keep that as a curated list. So grandparents, know, aunts, uncles. And then also, I also like to just keep track of where

Tonya Kubo (10:12.098)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (10:32.74)

be a good gift card for that person. If I’m not coming up with anything specific, what can we do to make them feel just loved and appreciated? Tonya, I think we need to take a quick little break. We need to go pay some bills. We’re going to come back and we’re going to go with number three of our five decisions to make in August to have a less stressed holiday.

Tonya Kubo (10:45.73)

Okay.

Tonya Kubo (10:58.954)

All right, so we are back and Cathy, let’s just jump right into number

Kathi (11:04.718)

Yes. Okay. I think this is a great time for you to have a discussion with your spouse, your partner, your kids, your parents, whomever it is about the holiday budget. this money, money. People would rather talk about money than let’s just say for little ears who are listening, more intimate subjects that I consider more intimate subjects, but, they would rather talk about those more intimate subjects than money.

because money has so much dynamic that’s attached to it. But I think the further out you are from the holiday and gift buying, the easier it is to have those conversations. So have those conversations in August instead of October. And you will take a lot of stress off of people. I, you know, Roger and I will have a budget that includes

Tonya Kubo (11:47.33)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (12:03.66)

a couple of different categories like gifts, entertaining. Entertaining makes it sound fancy. Let’s just say food, okay? One of the core budget items you need to have if you’re married to Roger Lipp is lighting. We have to have a lighting budget each year. So creating those realistic budgets. And one of the things that I wanna talk to Roger about

Tonya Kubo (12:11.511)

Yeah.

Kathi (12:32.728)

August is to start doing kind of like a Christmas club thing Do you remember clip Christmas clubs from like the seven sixty seventies and they well you weren’t around for some of those decades, but Yeah, okay, so I grew up in a time where you could at your bank open a Christmas club account and Okay, okay you do okay, so tell me about that,

Tonya Kubo (12:43.754)

I was gonna say, no.

Tonya Kubo (12:52.885)

yeah, we have

Yeah, we do that. Yeah. So it’s just, it’s a direct deposit every month and it goes into an account and I have mine set up. the regular Christmas club, it dumps the money automatically into your account like Thanksgiving week. And then it’s everything that you’ve saved up for the last year gets dumped into your account Thanksgiving week. And then that’s your money to go Christmas shopping or do whatever. And ours has, you can do Christmas club and you can

vacation club, which your money gets dumped in the summertime. I don’t like the automatic dumping because sometimes I lose track of it, right? Or, you know, Brian goes, woo, windfall. And there went my Christmas budget. So I haven’t set up to where I manually move the money

Kathi (13:30.214)

Cool.

Kathi (13:36.56)

Mm -hmm.

Right

Kathi (13:47.106)

I like the manually moving because you can start to determine, you know, where are we going to put this? What categories are we going to put this into? I love that. Yeah. So I want to, that’s what I want to do next year is to this August say, okay, let’s start setting up, you know, let’s, let’s start in January of next year, start putting some money aside. I, know, Roger gets a bonus most years and that’s usually

Tonya Kubo (13:49.44)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (14:16.252)

Christmas comes out of. We don’t know that that’s happening this year. So we’re going to need to, you know, do some creative financing, but that’s okay. And I think it’s good to have a realistic budget. Not like I know that we spent $2 ,000 last year, but we need to keep it to 1000 this year. Like, is that really going to work for you? Or what major thing are you going to take out? Roger and I have decided this year not to do Christmas gifts for each other because

Tonya Kubo (14:29.036)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (14:43.962)

We want to take a trip next year, things like that. think that that is, you know, having those conversations now so you’re not disappointed when the time comes.

Tonya Kubo (14:53.876)

Right, and I’ll just add another one for families. I have several friends that they actually theme their Christmases, and so they alternate. So there’s an electronics Christmas, and then the next year is a reading Christmas. And they only do so many gifts per child, but so that they know they need a little bit more set aside for electronics Christmas, but they spend a lot less on reading Christmas. And so that helps them balance it

Kathi (14:56.302)

Yeah.

Kathi (15:04.467)

Kathi (15:08.562)

okay.

Kathi (15:12.582)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:23.55)

on a two year cycle. I love that idea. So I just feel the need to share that with everybody.

Kathi (15:25.24)

Mm, I love that. Yeah. I think that’s so great. Yes. We did, we, when my kids were growing up, we did more of like, okay, there was a reading gift, there were clothes gifts, and then there was that fun gift, which often had a plug. So yes, I think that that, I think having a theme helps you narrow your decisions and helps you pre -decide, which is what this, this whole episode is about. It’s pre

Tonya Kubo (15:37.782)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:52.566)

Right. Well, like you said earlier on, right? It’s about making sure that November you likes August version of you and isn’t like cursing the name of August version of you. So Kathi, we are at tip number four. Do you need me to recap? Cause you may have lost track. Okay.

Kathi (16:01.329)

Yes.

Right, absolutely.

Kathi (16:11.036)

No, I’m good. Number four is your Christmas card list. So here’s what I mean by that. Figure out how many Christmas cards you’re gonna send. So the first decision is, are you sending Christmas cards? And go for

Tonya Kubo (16:28.692)

And Kathy Lipp, can I say something right now? That is the best thing ever. That I read your Christmas project planner after my mom had died. And the year that my mom died, when I read that, that gave me permission not to send Christmas cards that year. And I needed that relief so much.

Kathi (16:46.62)

I’m so glad.

Kathi (16:51.45)

Yeah, you know what and here’s the Brilliant thing. It’s not a binary decision It’s not we are a christmas card family or we’re not a christmas card family We’re like an every other year christmas card family now We did send them last year and my plan is to send them this year because if you listen, you know a big thing that’s going on our life on in our lives

Moose has cancer and this is probably her last Christmas with us and I’m not crying and so I want to have a great picture with me and Roger and Moose for our Christmas card and so I’m probably gonna send them this year and even on the years I don’t send them I love receiving them so I’m honored if I’m on your Christmas card list but I also understand the years where I don’t hear from you for a couple of years because life got in the

Tonya Kubo (17:18.028)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (17:45.518)

So I think it’s really a great idea in August because can we just say in December trying to send Christmas cards out, like Christmas is a part -time job.

Tonya Kubo (17:57.983)

It is.

Kathi (17:59.469)

And do we really need administrative tasks in December? No, no. So if you can, just get the list together. We’re talk about the cards and everything like that. But just decide if you’re gonna send them and be okay with not sending them. The other thing you can do, okay, Tonya, I will also say this. If you have some people in your family or like aunts or uncles or grandparents,

Tonya Kubo (18:04.266)

No, no, we do

Kathi (18:29.244)

like they live for the Christmas card, you can also buy a pack of like 10 Christmas cards and just send five of them and it’ll be okay. So you sent Christmas cards to these five people who it really means something to and that’s okay. Yes. I do believe that you will not be arrested. Yes, I do believe.

Tonya Kubo (18:41.372)

What?

Tonya Kubo (18:48.047)

I don’t know. Are you sure? Are you

Tonya Kubo (18:54.3)

okay. That reminds me of Abby. Abby will say, is that legal? Yes, yes, there is no law against not sending Christmas cards or only sending part

Kathi (18:58.926)

Right? Right. Yes, it

Tonya Kubo (00:20.329)

All right, Kathy. So I think we are ready for tip number

Kathi (00:25.942)

Okay, so this is like we’re thinking ahead about the Christmas card list. I also want you to think about the Christmas gift list. Like who are you actually giving gifts to this year? And are there people that maybe it’s time to have a discussion, hey, you know, we keep exchanging Amazon gift cards every year. What if we just went to dinner?

Or what if, you know, like I would rather spend time with you than to feel that obligation. And because I love you, don’t need a gift from you to be, now there are people in our lives we wanna do gifts for, our kids, maybe our parents, brothers, whatever. But get realistic about your Christmas card list. Do you have teachers from your kid’s school that you need to give to? Are there, you know,

Tonya Kubo (01:03.873)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (01:24.)

I also, I’ll put in this and in the Christmas budget some big tips that I give. Like we have a house cleaner that comes, you know, a couple of times a month. That I want to give a big tip to them. We have somebody who comes and helps with chopping down trees and things like that here on the property. We’re going to give them a big tip. Maybe it’s your hairdresser, maybe it’s your nail person. Like I give a big tip to the people who are loyal to me all year and who fit me in.

Tonya Kubo (01:38.135)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (01:53.614)

when it’s inconvenient. Because I want to stay on the nice list, not the naughty list. So do you need to have some hard conversations or maybe not hard conversations? Maybe you’re giving some freedom to people, but there’s advantages to early gift planning. Could you stock up on some things early on? Like I think about this, we’re big believers in stockings. We

Tonya Kubo (01:55.52)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (01:59.515)

Right. Exactly.

Tonya Kubo (02:12.884)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (02:22.135)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (02:22.724)

We like to do stockings for everybody in the family and we do stockings for every animal in the family. And so if I can buy those things, and we’ve got bunnies, we didn’t do them for all the chickens, but we do them for the dogs. Yeah, the quad pets, those are the ones that we’re doing it for. So I wanna get those things not in December. Let’s get those things early and so it’s not impacting us quite so much.

Tonya Kubo (02:35.703)

can understand that.

Kathi (02:50.36)

and I can start wrapping early and things like that. this is also a good time to keep track, to keep a list because it’s easy to forget what you’ve bought when you have a lot of kids and maybe they have their partners and they have their kids and all that kind of stuff. So starting a list either in your phone or an Excel spreadsheet or however you do it. Do you have any ideas for a Christmas gift?

creating the list.

Tonya Kubo (03:18.761)

Yes. Yeah, we all have a Google Doc and we just use the Google Doc all year long. And then when holidays come up, we know what to lean into. And, you know, we’ll have the girls prioritize like a little bit before the holiday. So we have a sense. But it’s really, really nice, especially when they’re younger, to just let them have a place where they can dream and then bring them back down to reality when it comes closer to the day.

Kathi (03:23.114)

okay.

Kathi (03:43.694)

Yeah. She’s speaking from experience because as we’ve recorded this, Sunday was a grand birthday in the Kubo home and there was a lot of dreaming and a lot of bringing back down to earth. But you know what? That’s what we do as parents. We give them wings and then we help them land safely.

Tonya Kubo (03:54.077)

Yes, it was a grand birthday.

Tonya Kubo (03:59.755)

Yes.

Tonya Kubo (04:05.549)

Yes. Okay. So Kathy, we have our five tips. I just want to recap them really quick for everybody. So these are our five August decisions for stress -free holiday. And this is part one. We’ve got five more coming up, don’t we? So the first decision is when and where will you have your holiday gatherings? The second is planning those gift exchanges.

Kathi (04:13.583)

Yeah.

Kathi (04:20.248)

Yes. That’s right, baby.

Tonya Kubo (04:34.391)

Who are we buying gifts for? Who’s buying gifts for us? What do we want to do? A little bit of spoiler alert if you’re just catching us. You know what? Do an experience. It’s just easier on everybody. Number three is set your holiday budget early. The further away that you are from the holiday, the less emotional it is. And I loved your tip, Cathy, about the Christmas club, right? Having a savings account that just manages the Christmas budget for you so you don’t have to stress about it.

Kathi (04:44.803)

It is easier.

Tonya Kubo (05:03.853)

Tip number four was your Christmas card list. Start that now, get the addresses now. Don’t do admin tasks a couple of weeks before Christmas. And then finally, along with don’t do admin tasks two weeks before Christmas is let’s get your Christmas gift list going. Now, if you are like me, Kathy, if our listeners are like me, it is hard to keep track of these things. Right now in August, this sounds brilliant, but I’m probably listening to this show on the way to somewhere else. So I cannot write these tips down.

So here’s what I think we should do. I think we should gather together all tips after our next episode and we should have a download for folks that they can find inside Clutterfree Academy, which is our free Facebook group open to all of our listeners and a few of their friends so long as they’re nice. And we will just so that everybody knows what to look for. It’s gonna be called 10 decisions to make in August for a less stressed holiday.

and you’ll find that inside our Clutterfree Academy Facebook group. And the link of that is gonna be in the show notes. Anything you wanna add, Cathy?

Kathi (06:08.336)

Yeah, if you’re saying, I’m gonna go be a part of that group, just know you have to answer a couple of questions before we let you in there. Lots of people apply and they skip over the questions, but we wanna keep that the kindest corner of the internet, and so we’re gonna make you answer the questions. So you have to read the rules, but come in there, you’re gonna find 15 ,000 of your new best friends, and you’re gonna all get clutter free together. Tonya, thank you so much for hosting us today.

Tonya Kubo (06:24.375)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (06:37.675)

I am so happy to have been doing this. Thank you for having me, Kathy.

Kathi (06:41.84)

Friends join us next week for those other five tips because they really are going to make a difference You know we are going to take care of our future selves and the first way we’re going to do that is to get over the holiday hump with a lot of love a lot of fun and some cocoa, so I’m Kathy lip with Tonya Kubo.

Thank you for joining us. You’ve been listening to Clutterfree Academy. Now, go create the clutter free life you’ve always wanted to live.