{"id":258993,"date":"2026-01-26T21:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T21:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/258993\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T21:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T21:32:11","slug":"feeling-financially-scorched-how-to-recover-from-the-christmas-holiday-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/258993\/","title":{"rendered":"Feeling financially scorched? How to recover from the Christmas holiday period"},"content":{"rendered":"

If your bank account looks a little sunburnt right now, you\u2019re not alone. Frances Cook has four tips for getting back on track. <\/p>\n

Christmas costs, holidays, the new year kicking off with school uniform and stationery expenses \u2013 look, it\u2019s a classic time of year to feel over-extended, and a bit annoyed about it.<\/p>\n

The good news is that you probably don\u2019t need a dramatic reset, or to eat two-minute noodles from now until winter. <\/p>\n

From feeling less stressed, to the places where you could find some extra cash in your budget, here\u2019s what New Zealand experts recommend for getting on top of your money at a stressful time.<\/p>\n

1. Take the blindfold off <\/p>\n

When money gets stressful, the instinctive response is often avoidance. <\/p>\n

Jason Leong, the CEO of budgeting software company Pocketsmith, points out that not looking often just makes the stress worse<\/p>\n

\"Take<\/p>\n

Take a long hard look at where your money really goes. (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like trying to cross the road blindfolded. Can you imagine how just horrifying that would be? You just hope that you don’t get hit by a car, or that someone’s going to slow down for you. I think a lot of people go through their financial lives like that. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you take the blindfold off, you still have to cross the road, but you can at least anticipate how quickly you’re going to step forward, when you’re going to pause to get across the lanes. That’s what financial control feels like to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leong says once you know where your money is going, it\u2019s often less stressful overall, even if you still don\u2019t like the answer.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s your reset step one: pull up your accounts, scan the last month, and see what\u2019s actually happening.<\/p>\n

2. Reset your mindset before you reset your bank account<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve looked, be careful not to fall into an easy trap, where all-or-nothing thinking kicks in. <\/p>\n

If you don’t like the state of your outgoings, you might announce you’re going to stop foolish spending and effectively be \u201cperfect\u201d from here on. But when that money crash-diet fails, you\u2019re likely to then give up. <\/p>\n

Performance psychologist Dom Vettise sees this pattern a lot, not just with the elite athletes he helps, but with everyday goals, including money.<\/p>\n

He says two common mindset traps to avoid are \u201cmental filtering\u201d and \u201cdisqualifying the positive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mental filtering is when you only think about the things that have gone wrong in the day, leaving you feeling like a failure. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s often accompanied by disqualifying the positive, which is when anything good that you achieved is dismissed as being down to luck. <\/p>\n

Down that road lies only misery, where motivation drops, and you feel like you\u2019re failing even if you\u2019re making slower, steady progress. Instead he recommends looking for the things you can control, and looking for even the smallest moments of progress, and celebrating them. That way you give yourself motivation to keep taking the steps forward. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In what hidden ways is money cascading out of your account? (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n

3. Fix the big leaks <\/p>\n

Jane Joo, a financial influencer, has managed to invest over $100,000 into the sharemarket, at only 25. <\/p>\n

One of her tactics for being able to invest so much is to keep her living costs low, and budget carefully. <\/p>\n

But she\u2019s not a fan of obsessing over coffees and small treats.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo often I hear people say, cut back on the coffee, cut back on the matcha lattes,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s those things that are breaking the bank. I focus on the bigger picture items, by doing a personal finance audit.\u201d<\/p>\n

That means checking power bills, phone plans, internet, and subscriptions. They\u2019re the costs that tend to run on autopilot, but can add up to big money<\/p>\n

Once they\u2019re sorted, you\u2019re able to save money without exerting daily willpower. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you go and look on a power plan, that could take like 10 to 15 minutes and it could save you hundreds of dollars,” says Joo. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a brilliant hourly rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"When<\/p>\n

When you get a tail wind, ride it. (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n

4. Ride those tail winds<\/p>\n

One reason post-summer money resets fail is we\u2019re sometimes trying to force change at the hardest time. <\/p>\n

You don\u2019t really want to be back at work, the credit card bill is stressful, and you\u2019ve probably got a couple of New Year resolutions on the go. <\/p>\n

In order to stay motivated, you need to make it as easy as you can, and build on the wins you get. <\/p>\n

EnableMe strategic coach Shelley Palman says that means that, instead of relying on discipline, she focuses on timing and systems with her clients. <\/p>\n

Any moments when money pressure naturally eases is a moment to lock in that progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the wins come, we call them tailwinds.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this time of year, you could have more tailwinds than you realise. There are fewer social events, routines are returning and summer costs \u2013 trips away, family staying, the need to entertain bored kids \u2013 are lifting. The mistake people make is letting those gains disappear into other forms of thoughtless spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t waste it,\u201d Palman says.<\/p>\n

Look for any costs that have gone down, or disappeared entirely post-summer. Could you take some of that money and redirect it, such as with an autopayment into savings? <\/p>\n

Locking in the habit before you get used to higher spending means you don\u2019t feel deprived, and you get the boost of feeling more financially prepared. <\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including the timeline for the Mt Maunganui search, and who Donald Trump\u2019s deployed to Minnesota. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If your bank account looks a little sunburnt right now, you\u2019re not alone. Frances Cook has four tips…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[114,64161,184,268,85,46,545,266,267],"class_list":{"0":"post-258993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-consumer-affairs","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-opinion","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}