everyone has their own unique views and needs when it comes to financial success if you'd like to leave your financial woes behind and live a life of Financial Freedom you've come to the right place welcome to the saving with Steve show hosted by Steve Sexton the show will help you with the ins and outs of money we talked about financial issues that could be costing you thousands of dollars and keeping you up at night we talked about money tax reduction saving more spending less 401K risk management retirement and everything under the sun that relates to you having a healthier happy relationship with money now here is your host of saving with Steve Steve Sexton little welcome to the same thing with Steve<br> talk about the ins and<br> lots of money pretty much everything in the sun release the you having a happier or healthier relationship with money my name is Steve Sexton and I want to thank you for joining us today he would keep continue to expand here in the United States were expanding internationally so we're very grateful that you're here with us and sharing this with your friends and family we had so much so much so much people said hey I want to go check out that Chris class episode Christmas on episode 97 you can go to saving with Steve. You ask again at sitting with Steve. Us and Chris Clash he's the number one traveled through he spent almost 20 minutes educating people on how to go about paying only what is at ten cents on the dollar for travel he went to the actual website he showed us websites where you can go to Hawaii hotel resort hotel has like six seven hundred bucks tonight they can do it for 177 to get avoid Resort fees all that other stuff that goes along with it the ballet stuff to everything<br> daddy show people how to travel for Less is one of those things where you should be but actually how to pay only the taxes at the airport charges Chris is open to providing you a little time so you can get his insides does it for free so you want to go check it out it's something you just got to mention your was saving with Steve about the impact of Social Security 40 years in the making and I think it's important to understand what's going on here so we're going to unpack it for you as well today we got something special in Hope and Larry we're hoping Larry where are Frugal Living expert new race four Sons debt-free bought a house and cash and the only lives at $40,000 a year they discovered the secrets of spending less saving more while living the spirit of Joy abundance mentality practical struggle waged over there 100,000 fans on a YouTube channel YouTube channel called under the median you really want to check that out and they're going to be<br> choose today about how to save money during the holiday with that my great pleasure to introduce you or welcome open Larry where I hope Larry welcome to the show thanks so much for having a side of me hear Steve you know what I'm really glad you're here because there is just so much happening in our world right now with global instability so it's really important that people look at ways to stretch their dollars in the cool thing about you guys is you know what it's wild you actually raised for boys get free which is like really hard to say and you paid your house cash and put more importantly did on less than $40,000 a year and admittedly housing prices in the midwest are very very reasonable so that Jenna but everything is relative and I'm just making light of it but the reality is doing that is something special you also been sharing this on YouTube with your YouTube channel<br> the median there's over a hundred thousand people there I bet they watched it religiously cuz I've seen some of those things going on my God why I didn't think of that so we're walking into the holiday season great time with all this going on to have some tips on how to save some money during the holidays I would really love to hear your story how do you guys really get started and being Frugal we get started being Frugal because two months after we got married I open the bank account statement and we were flat broke<br> who is forced Upon Us figure it out figure it out fast or you're in big trouble and so she got home from work and I said you know what we got to figure this thing out we got married thinking we live on Levin Ashley cost money to live and we have grown children who aren't committed relationship and they started having these conversations about money and far far far earlier than we ever did we start having money conversations we figured out we didn't have any money before we got married not that we didn't even discuss it didn't even talk about it and so that's what sort of interesting to see that passed down to are now grown children that they're like oh yeah we need of these conversations a lot earlier than you but yeah so we started figuring it out and I worked in and at the time there was a man named Larry Burkett that started a half-hour program that talk about finances<br> it came out to 30 and I would ask you my lunch hour so that I could sit not in the controller and sit in the lunchroom to 30 minutes and listen to him and take notes and that's where I really started figuring out finances is so interesting that you say that that your kids are doing what you're doing right there with but used to do and they're doing a younger and I always say this is phrase when I talk to a lot of people and I've done the discussions with parents at schools and stuff like that and I used to say do you know what monkey see monkey do is I said the things you do now your kids are going to do when they grow yeah but that that's a big lesson to learn nowadays very important especially with the inflation going on the price is going up. If you're debt-free and you have a set budget you can live with peace of mind even through tough times people equate fergality with deprivation and we say this<br> all the time for gallaty is absolutely no doubt about deprivation you can make $200,000 and still be frugal that's a good thing you can make $50,000 and Be Frugal but there's no difference between this reality frugality is choosing when where and how you're going to spend that money it's not depriving yourself of everything that you want is deciding what you want and figuring out how you're going to get there are actually a lot I love what you just said it's about planning what you want and how are you going to get there who more important planning and just a lot of people just don't I have those conversations all the time and that's why I thought what you're talkin about here I trying to preach to the choir you know how kids are you all the time in Asia as Mom and Dad or somebody else comes in there it says the same thing I got my God what you're here for the harm of it and you're down for that we are so down for being your aha moment what it would like to do is since we're walking into the holiday season the big question is everybody<br> castles holiday traditions that give giving an all that can we do that with that with costing little about a little or no money station is a tradition because it cost a lot of money is tradition is attrition because it it connects your family in meaningful ways and that doesn't have to cost a lot of money we got really good raising four kids on an income which was consistently under the US average income we have really good at creating those moments where things became really special not because we spent money but because we spent time together and so we're going to run through these are top five ways that you can find free or nearly free ways to express Traditions around the holiday season in your area all right and then we'll tell you as we go through what we think we found the first thing you're going to start with is does your area have like a community calendar and online community calendar start with your Convention & Visitors Bureau I signed up for my canvas<br> videos of really like you want like a weekly email it tells you what's going on in our area Mike Welch shoot yeah so they stand there's a lot of things on there that are like really high price and moderate priced and then you find something you like Siri really up to you not believe that for free one of our absolute favorite family traditions through the Convention and Visitor's Bureau is done downtown we're living in Peoria so it's called you'll love Peoria you all spelled y u l e and it's where businesses downtown will open up and they'll have talent there are Refreshments they don't have checked one of the local churches has full-blown good baked food and and they show part of their play and they invite you back to their Christmas play so it's a really fun event it's very well-attended they have a trolley car that runs around between the different places if it's real cold you can kind of get warmed up not very fun free event in our kid<br> loved it and he wants to do it every year our grandkids call us and make sure that you know what they're getting us on the calendar that things were with you these things are grown kids in their mid-twenties are like when we going to do that that's one of those things but they're you like to write we joked that it's like more sugar than they consume in like a month is this like this inverse ratio between the amount of sugar to eat and how active they are in the singalong do you know you get some sugar in your like you sing that song it's so much fun to do is check with local churches there are some local churches that put on some programs in the Christmas season I'm telling you they are top-notch but we left around 1 year and we found out one of our churches in the area was going to do them all and the Night Visitors is actually a Christmas Opera and then we found out the lady that was conducting it out which school was Larry went to high school with and she's like hey when your boy<br> I want to come be in a mall in the night visit the restroom so he got to be in this Christmas Opera and this lady that was conducting it was she been on Broadway so she was really New York New York so she like work with him and they provided everything it cost him absolutely nothing and we got to go to the performances for free and see him in a mall in night visitors one of our local parks is called Forest Park it's a park with trails that go through the woods they have a walking candle light thing for Christmas in their Visitor Center they'll have live Talent playing you can sit and kind of warm up and listen to them when you get out on the trail they have hot chocolate and it's all lit by those luminary candles really fun free event senior called sugar<br> advice for having a happier relationship with money still to come on the saving with Steve show<br> don't let your financial woes keep you up at night and prevents you from living a life of Financial and personal freedom hi I'm Steve sex and post of the saving with Steve show where did he talk about the in an ounce of money those financial issues that could be costing me thousands of dollars causing stress keeping you up at night we're going to talk about money tax reduction saving more spending your investment risk management retirement and everything is so sweet with you having a healthier happy relationship with money soon as you've ever dreamed of living a life of Financial and personal freedom you owe it to yourself and your family to tune in to the saving with Steve show join me Steve section of the saving with Steve show as we talked about everything under the sun when it comes to money to learn more about the show visit saving with Steve. Us that's saving with Steve. Us saving with Steve. Us will see you soon<br> welcome back to the show that is here to help you achieve your financial goals it's the saving with Steve show now here's your host Steve Sexton hey welcome back to the same thing with Steve shall we talk about the ins-and-outs of money you know what if you would like to follow us<br> you can go to the shaving with Steve. You West website looking all hundred episode you can also go to Facebook at saving with Steve for behind the scenes guest gets all sorts of stuff and with that I just want to get back to Hope and Larry where the beginning is some great advice is this family experiences after all the stuff is gone after us all thrown away everybody remember this experience anyway and create Traditions out of those even the decorating the Christmas tree we do it every single year like the Friday after Thanksgiving it became a thing with the kids getting together and figuring out how to decorate the house we have Traditions associated with exactly what goes on the street who gets to put the first ornament on my eighty-year-old mother came came over this year and she put the first ornament on that was huge the kids for Grandma to put the first ornament on anything like that can become that meaningful<br> tradition watching champy Christmas music we have a list of you and the kids will like say OK what dates are we doing this on we have pop popcorn and we sit around popcorn and hot cocoa and watch the campy Christmas music movies that doesn't cost you anything but it's those moments that you're creating together that's what counts. That's wonderful I love that is so interesting I love the Christmas movies let's talk about what's next how about shopping early what's open for the best shopping early you know one of the things that we like to do is shop right after Christmas for the next year or at least begin that process so you go to the store especially January end of January you'll get some really great discounts a lot of clothes out maybe 55% 75% off will look for things that<br> can put it in our gift closet to save for the following year and throughout the year we do a lot of shopping we like to buy used items for each other we just love getting things from thrift stores or Goodwill and find you some really nice items trophy shop early you have plenty of time to look for those things you're not no rush just trying to do the last minute thing to do is make sure that you have a complete Christmas list and that list is prioritize prioritize is like one of my favorite words in the English dictionary for not getting you prioritize mean that the most important things to you are at the top of that list any list you make really should be prioritized so the people that you know for sure that you're going to buy for the immediate family clearly they're going to be at the top of the list now the people that bought him unless you're not going to spend as much money on them it's not that they're less important that they were at the bottom of the it's that it makes it super easy to look at those people and group them together put a bracket around their names that they all right all of these people are<br> I need to get a DIY thing I'm going to make them something specific so you know that those people are all going to get the same gift like teacher gifts I always use that as an example we got to give gifts for teachers amen and I'm saying and so all of the teachers are going to get basically the same gift but it makes it easy for you visually your eye is going to see that and when you assign a monetary amount to it and say this is how much I'm going to spend on each person it gives you a goal post for how much money you're going to spend on those gifts the worst thing in the world is walk out without a list without any ideas and without any budget plan then you can cut a keep that that spending more strategic another thing that we do is we save Amazon gift cards that we get throughout the year so we can use those say hey in November to get things that are kids have already given us on a list that they'll compiled from Amazon so that we know exactly what they want what you get him and then we pretty much got it paid for as well<br> can you Check n Go on to their Amazon account and they create a wish list and they can label it Christmas 2022 they make that list terrible they send you a link to it you go right to their list and that list is clickable so whatever they want you click on it Amazon will take you right to that item you can click on it put it in your cart and you know you've just got to send them something they really want it all you need is your own Amazon account and you can create your own wish list and make it's either private or shareable just make sure you make it shareable and they'll be a link associated with it you can pass it on to your friends I'm loved ones does Amazon send you a little Lincoln say hey guess what it's cheaper now actually okay so this is how you find out what goes on sale at Amazon camel camel camel camel camel camel.com okay I know it's a weird the first time I heard it was like what channel he'll kill her I thought you were talking about smoking<br> is a website that tracks Amazon prices and you can go on their you create a free account on camelcamelcamel and tell them what you're looking for so let's say you have decided Steve you want an instant pot we know you do but I don't want to pay full price even close to full price for that instant pot so you're going to sell camelcamelcamel watch can put it on your watchlist and once Amazon drops the price of that instant pot camelcamelcamel is going to send you an e-mail say hey Steve Amazon just dropped the price of that item you were looking for high do all the watching for you wonderful I got you know that's that's that's one tip I'm telling my wife says we really really needed it and you don't have to walk a mile for that cam<br> play LarryBoy and the Bad Funhouse<br> okay let's talk about simplifying entertainment do for entertainment we have loved to do steamed potlucks we've done them for years right Larry what kind of pot Lux are we done remember will you know I can't come up with a large dessert bars and everybody brings their favorite XYZ right and then you can bring a favorite beverage to drink and basically it's like a it's a potluck but it's all around one centralized theme and we have so much fun doing this with friends and the other thing we ad so we do these same pot Lux throughout the year was friends but at Christmas time we had something else that makes it even more and that is the white elephant gift one year we went to Salvation Army and we found this okay so you remember the<br> the leg lamp from the Christmas story it wasn't the leg lamp but it was a big lamp shaped like a woman's high heel shoe okay and you should have seen those teenage girls like stealing that white elephant gift from each other it was so much fun we found so many fun I think we spent a total of like $13 on all the gifts we bought a lot of gifts lightly used for the white elephant gift exchange so everybody like goes to their favorite second hand shops and looks for a really really fun things for the white elephant gift exchange different way we called The Gourmet group so somebody has it like a German Italian with everything and they make a main dish and and then everybody is given in the recipe for a side dish and dessert they obviously bring your own drink but we also had a game into it so nice to be bunco or Farkle or Monopoly or whatever it is we do that in fact one time everybody that we decided we're going to have an eating<br> so everybody had to bring their own little thing that they had to be deed<br> so funny because of course I can only one person one there one event you know because they they practice eating that one experiences do and they should because with good friends I mean how much fun is it did you sort of share your favorite Italian recipe are your favorite Mexican recipe your favorite Chinese recipe you bring what you know is really awesome and your family love and you sharing with other people you love people people get too hung up on feeling like if there's a Hostess they have to make everything or make everything perfect the house that would be perfect the decoration has to be perfect when we did one of these potlucks we did a travel around work we did the appetizer somewhere the main dish somewhere desert I forget what we had at our house but it was cold we actually had it out in our backyard on the patio we had fires going in our fire pit and one of our tables has a fire pit built into the middle and we all just cuddle drug<br> the fires and we just had so much fun once again didn't cost a lot of money but a lot of good memories. Is and you called the comparison game so let's help help help people understand that and I think there's a day that they keeping up with the Joneses type thing people need to stop believing that gifts have to be the biggest for the most expensive to be the most meaningful one of the things that we encourage people to do is keep a running list list a mom sometime in the middle of June says you know I'd really all those those new things this I just saw this advertisement no stopping at work or whatever and and they're really cool and by the time it gets to November and you shopping for Mom you will completely forgotten what it was that my what Mom say that was really cool back in June you remember keep a running list of people's favorite colors their hobby gift ideas because that will help you also by the time you get to Wawa<br> art at 10 p.m. 7:30 don't want to do it at Walmart or wherever else and you're going to go and you're going to have a list of things you know these people are going to appreciate you know what is this most special gifts my family ever bought me was I collect a radios and televisions I used to collect them a lot more than I do now but they found an old 1953 Zenith transoceanic radio at a thrift store and they all pitched in and by golly the thing actually work that was my favorite Christmas gift once again didn't they ask for it but it was so fun cuz it was right up my hobby Ali time how can people get ahold of you how can I connect with you to to learn these things that you're talk about today cuz I know there's a whole bunch more and how can people go see your YouTube channel and under the<br> median m e d i a n or you can find us at our website under the median. Com wonderful that's great he looked so much probably going to have you back again cuz you've been so much fun in this goes like that and now he's telling me I'm guessing that happened so much you guys stay safe stay healthy and enjoy your holiday season and again thanks for being part of dating with Steve today thank you thank you thank you so much alright be safe and healthy five more expert advice for having a happier relationship with money still to come on the saving with Steve show<br> don't let your financial woes keep you up at night and prevent you from living a life of Financial and personal freedom hi I'm Steve Sexton post of the saving with Steve show where to be talking about the in an ounce of money does Financial issues it could be costing me thousands of dollars causing stress keeping you up at night we're going to talk about money tax reduction saving more spending your investment risk management retirement and everything is so sweet with you having a healthier happy relationship with money soon as you've ever dreamed of living a life of Financial and personal freedom you owe it to yourself and your family to tune in to the saving with Steve show join me Steve Sexton on a saving with Steve show as we talked about everything under the sun when it comes to money to learn more about the show visit saving with Steve. Us that's saving with Steve. Us saving with Steve. Us will see you soon<br> welcome back to the show that is here to help you achieve your financial goals it's the saving with Steve show now here's your host Steve Sexton the ins-and-outs of money I want to truly thank you for tuning in I appreciate you letting your friends and family know about the show all the replacer available at skating with Steve. You asked if you're enjoying the stories of helpful information check out our affiliate the UK help Radio AM FM 247 DBS Radio and talk radio New York City if you'd like to check out other episodes cuz we just finished episode 108 you can always go to saving with Steve. You was if you have comments would like to see somebody on the show be more than happy to accommodate you please go to viewers at sitting with Steven to send an email tonight I just want to talk one brief little Philly and it's here about social security Social Security Administration just announced the cost of living allocation<br> for Social Security it's a guaranteed income one of the few guaranteed incomes that lasts as long as you do it's one of the few guaranteed income that will not get adjusted when the stock market goes down and one of the few guaranteed incomes that will help you keep up with purchasing power and that's just what happened to cost of living allocation went up 8.7% that hasn't happened like that since 1981 so its been over forty years now here's one of the big things really interesting 70% of claimants take Social Security early and they typically do this cuz I think Social Security going to go away or they worked really really hard they want to get your money now and or many people think that if they take the money now they're going to be able to buy more well that the reality according to studies like the one from CNBC Mary Beth Franklin and others that's not quite the case in fact because of people taking it early they're giving up on 3.4 trillion dollars of money that could be in their bank account<br> in fact study showed that 57% of people that took sole security early could have had a larger income and had more assets if they just waited a few years there's a lot of people that retire at 62 they say hey I'm going to wait five years to take Social Security you have to look at that as well because you got to remember if your 60 to you're getting $2,000 a month to $24,000 a year for four years or 5 years it's over a hundred thousand dollars will that hundred thousand dollars of meat to you when you're 85 86 87 when you might need it for help I understand if your income is quite tight and you need to take a cash got a ticket if your family is one of those situations where they don't live past 70 65 70 71 72 73 you might want to take me to otherwise you won't get full benefits if you're in a situation it's important to chicken count longevity your genetics it's important to take account how much you're going to need later on it's important to take a look at it as advice from a nurse<br> are you based on your trips what's important to you your goals to see where the Incan the guaranteeing is going to be cuz it's one of those guaranteed wants and you need to maximize at like you maximize your pension you also want to set up your spouse kissers ways you can take your social security or not it was really important that you do that I want to thank you all for hanging out with you today on saving with Steve as we move into this holiday season we're going to have more things for you to take a look at so if you want to find some things are you want to hear about something she could have you were the same as Steve. US Senate Soul email will make sure it gets on the air will plan for we got some real cool things coming up here in the future we have Nicole coming on here she's going to be talking and she said she owns a company called mythologies and basically she's talking about mixing cocktails for the holiday season and you know when she's it's just wonderful thing she does it for women kiss women there but like cocktails so we're going to have her on we're going to have more people on with travel where they talk about money like we usually do and with that I want to say thank you for<br> ring with his Heroes evening with Steve stay safe stay healthy have a wonderful holiday season and will look forward to seeing you next Thursday at 5 I thank you for joining us for the saving with Steve show hosted by Steve Sexton to learn more about the show and how to become a guest or sponsor visit saving with Steve. Us that's saving with Steve. Us join us again next time as we continue to talk about everything under the sun that relates to you having a healthier happier relationship with money this has been the saving with Steve show hosted by Steve Sexton<br>