Whether it\u2019s gift-giving, a stacked social calendar, or even hosting the whole family, Christmas is pretty much guaranteed to take a hefty bite out of your bank balance.<\/p>\n
And with those stresses and financial headaches comes the very real prospect of a major argument \u2013 or multiple arguments \u2013 with a loved one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a real flashpoint for couples because it\u2019s all about spending money,\u201d says counsellor and Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy accredited psychotherapist Maxine Walsh on the latest episode of the Money Talks podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you do have a tendency to argue about money, Christmas is going to be a big, big time for that. The vast majority of couples, you\u2019ll have two people with different spending habits. That\u2019s not unusual at all. It\u2019s probably quite rare to have a couple where they\u2019ll both have similar spending habits.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, like with everything else when it comes to being in a healthy couple, communication is the key thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walsh notes that \u201cgive and take\u201d should be in our minds when Christmas-related financial firestorms present themselves and that people should enter realistic, truthful conversations about budgeting at this time of year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard of couples getting into that conversation of, \u2018let\u2019s not buy one another presents, things are too tight this year\u2019 and that\u2019s perfectly fine and OK as long as you\u2019re both being honest about that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis thing of, \u2018oh, I don\u2019t really want the present\u2019 and then having to mind-read: \u2018Do they really mean that? Should I get something small?\u2019 Just try to be really honest, because it\u2019s a needless argument.\u201d<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s say a row breaks out despite all the best intentions and preventative measures. Is it possible to \u2018fight better\u2019?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a very simple key in any argument that you\u2019re going to have and that\u2019s trying to listen to the other person rather than trying to be heard. Once you go into it with the objective of being heard, nobody is heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the full conversation with Maxine Walsh, including why we ought to think twice before labelling somebody a Scrooge at Christmas, you can listen to Money Talks wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n
The content of this podcast is for information purposes and does not constitute investment advice or recommendation of any investment product.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether it\u2019s gift-giving, a stacked social calendar, or even hosting the whole family, Christmas is pretty much guaranteed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,18399,246,52680,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-178052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-christmas","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-money-talks-podcast","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}