Season of Stress

Dave and Ryan take a break from financial chatter to talk about what really matters the most this time of year — holiday stress! It's all about shopping, football, and traditions in a very special episode.

David Smyth and Ryan Petrunyak talk about family, finances and fun. Learn more about Family Financial Partners at familyfinancialpartners.com.

Securities offered through The O.N. Equity Sales Company, Member FINRA/SIPC, One Financial Way Cincinnati, Ohio 45242 (513) 794-6794. David Smyth is an Investment Advisor Representative offering Investment Advisory services through O.N. Investment Management Company. Estate planning services provided in conjunction with your licensed legal advisor.

Transcript

0:21

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of In My Day. How you doing today Dave? Hey, Ryan. It's the season of stress, right? We're trying to get everything... It has snuck up upon us, hasn't it? Everything has to be done. Even the podcast is late. We've got less than, what, 45 days to the end of the year? We're counting down. Are you getting excited? I really am. And it's hit me differently this year. I think one, because I can't believe it's actually November. And then two, we've just got a lot of exciting things going on. How about you? The weather's been so warm, I don't even realize that it's the holiday season yet. You can't imagine snow? Not yet. Not yet. And I'm okay with it. I'm not complaining, to be clear. Now they're saying, I don't know who you believe anymore, right? But they're saying it's gonna be a cold and icy and snowy winter. That's what the Farmer's Almanac says. You gotta trust them, right? I wouldn't mind just a nice blanket of snow right around Christmas. Just beautify everything. And then if someone could come along like maybe day three during the night. And just suck it all away. And then we go right into springtime, once January 1 comes around. Yeah, then maybe play a golf round right between Christmas and New Year's, that'd be perfect. I'm okay with that. That sounds good to me. So what are you most excited about this holiday season for your family? I'd be remiss if I didn't say Thanksgiving's coming up and we have Keri's entire family is coming to town, which exists of the immediate. So her parents are coming up from Florida, her brother's coming from Colorado. My parents who now live in town here will be joining us as well as, several of the, all the children basically, and a few friends. And I did invite my brothers, but one of my brothers who sells, high end wine he's Dave, this is my busy season between Thanksgiving and New Year's, that's when everybody needs him like an accountant at tax time. And my other brother, I'm excited for him even though he's not going to be there at Thanksgiving because he actually has the starring role in his community theater out in Edmonds, Washington of Willy Wonka. And so yeah, so we're going to have a Willy Wonka in the family, which is fun. So a couple of the family members my aunt Carolyn is going to fly out there and I believe take my eldest son Gates and see Benjamin in his theater performance, which will be really great. But so by the time they you know between Thanksgiving and everybody coming together and then the Christmas season, which is always good, especially when you have a 10 year old in the family. While he doesn't believe, which I still believe, but he he does get very excited about stockings and he mentioned today actually in the car on the way here, he said Dad, I said, what are you looking forward to about Christmas? He goes it has to be stockings, number one. And he said, second, I like gifts. And he said, Mom gets a little stressed out about. Giving gifts and getting gifts for us. She's, you just stressed her out all the shopping and wrapping and everything, but I Decided this year to make it easier for her. I told her I thought since there's three sons. It would just be easier To have her just get us each five gifts. She's got a quota Yeah, and he actually said that with a smile on his face like he was doing her a favor. So kind. It was truly like, angelic the way he said it. He really put some thought into it. He's we don't need a zillion gifts like she usually gives us. We just need five each. How about you? What are you looking forward to? We'll do actual Thanksgiving with my family. In our twenties with no kids, so we bounce back and forth between the two families. And so we'll do Thanksgiving with my family. And my grandmother, who lives in Florida, comes up here for Thanksgiving. She refuses to come up here past November because it's too cold. So then we go to her for Christmas. So that's what we're doing with my family. And then Katie's family are all diehard Ohio State fans. So the Thanksgiving celebration always centers around the Ohio State Michigan game. So the last couple years, it has been a sad Thanksgiving celebration. So I'm hopefully excited for this year, and I'm stressed about that. I don't know. We'll see what happens with that. But not to say Ohio State's not gonna win, but Michigan looks pretty daggum tough this year in football. I can't say publicly that I'm concerned, but I'm concerned, it could ruin the day, though, for the the family, right? Oh, it does. It's a lot. Do you eat before the big game, or is it? We eat during. So that way, if they win, the party tends to go on a little later. If they lose, everyone makes a beeline for the door. We'll see how it goes. So it'll be fun and then we'll do the actual Christmas day celebration with Katie's family up there too. I love that. That's fun. So you'll be putting some some highway miles on the vehicle. Always do. Always do. Now, what do we do with Rosie? Does Rosie travel with you for those? Rosie travels in the car but when we fly to Florida for three days during Christmas to see my grandmother, she's gonna stay with Katie's parents but mostly she goes with us. And for those of you listening that don't know who Rosie is, you want, maybe... She's our three year old golden retriever who is spoiled beyond measure. Absolutely adorable though. I went over to Ryan's to the family place over the weekend for the Baltimore Ravens Seahawks game. It was called a game. It really wasn't a game. It was more like a beatdown because Ryan had actually told me before the game that he was really looking forward to seeing all four quarters of the game on TV because the last few weeks the Ravens have been beating teams. So handily, that usually CBS turns to other games that are closer and, potentially actually interesting to watch. And I saw a small twinkle in your eye when, during the third quarter, I said, who switched the channel? And you looked at me and you're like, nobody, they did it again. But Rosie had a beautiful purple bow on for the Ravens game, which I thought was just. For dog fashion, I give her an A She looks great. She's pampered. But that's the fun part for Christmas though, because we can buy her a 5 dog toy and she gets more enjoyment out of that than anybody else will get out of any gift they receive. I remember when my kids were little, we used to literally just wrap up empty boxes, put wrapping paper on them. And they would like, just drool all over the box, the wrapping paper, and have a blast tearing it open. And then when they'd open the box, it was big enough, they'd crawl inside and just sit in it. Yeah. And it was that simple. Times were different versus now having a present quota. Now you have a 15 year old and a 10 year old that have expectations. They have expectations. So it's, the best part of Thanksgiving... is, for us, is just sitting around, whether, like you said football's on just sitting around, catching up. You don't have the stress of, the holiday shopping and having to go to Fayette Mall or Hamburg or outlets or anywhere. You still shop in person? I'm old school. There's this thing, it's called Amazon. You should check it out. I know. This year is the, not to change subjects, but this year is the 20th anniversary of Elf the movie coming out. And it's actually going to be out in theaters, right? Oh, is it really? Yeah, it is. I just found this out the other day. I thought it was really cool. So I'm going to take my kids to see it, like traditionally. But they're, re releasing it for the 20th year anniversary. And I'm sure they've beautified it a little bit. But, I love that spirit of Buddy the Elf. And the idea of going to a big, large shopping store. And going to each department and picking things out. And I don't like the traffic, but I just, I love seeing Santa. I love seeing a fat Santa sitting in a corner, with kids crawling up on his lap, whispering what they want, and parents with their ear in, listening. I just, I think there's a fun tradition to that. Even if it's only for maybe two or three hours. Yeah, I can't take it I can't take any kind of mall or anything else past that because then I realized like all of a sudden I transitioned from Traditional like holiday activities to oh my gosh, we're shopping Fair enough. I get to see a big guy with a beard who's got a jolly attitude and is a little over the top every single day when I come into the office. Fair enough. Fair enough. But no, just yeah, Thanksgiving's great. Just low key, not that stressful. It's simple. What, What are your stresses for the holiday season this year? Is it, I guess it is Christmas. I, yeah, I really do hate shopping. I hate shopping. I love giving gifts to people, but I hate shopping. So you're right. Amazon does fit in a special place in my heart Because it allows me to do the gift card thing or just simplify some of it. Yeah, or like for my brother's family, he'll send me links of what his kids want and I'm like that is the best relative ever because I don't know what a Eight year old or a five year old princess wants. Yeah, not my brother or his children. I, we got it. Yeah. Just, one I just said was Willy Wonka. So who knows what the other one is, right? But the hardest thing for me, believe it or not, is, I like to get up, go to the gym at 5 a. m. Monday through Friday, get my workout in, it's my personal time with myself, get my brain get my body right. It's really hard this time of year with all the seasonal parties and get togethers and festivities because naturally when you're getting up at 4 a. m. right, 4, 4. 15 in the morning if you want to get seven or eight hours of sleep you just do the math on it and you're wanting to go to bed at a pretty early time that compared to most people in the world is like weird early. Yeah. Especially if you don't have kids, right? Like my 10 year old goes to sleep at 830, so it's not a big deal. Because he goes to sleep, I go to sleep, right? No problem. But for those people that don't have kids or for these holiday parties, a lot of them don't even get going till 8 o'clock at night. And even if it's a Friday night, I feel like I'm a snoresaurus on a Friday night. Cause I'm just like, let me just go home, go to bed. Now Saturday, I'll be fine. I can sleep in, I'll be good. But it's just, there's a stress for me. Personally in, doing all the social things, because I do have extreme FOMO, I love to be part of the festivities, right? I love people. No, I love it. And yet, at the same time, I know my body's you gotta get some sleep because you're definitely keeping your promise to yourself of getting up in the morning. And then you mix in the, a few holiday cookies and some holiday pies. And all the things that we all love that are the seasonal traditions of each of our families. And all of a sudden you start feeling more sluggish. And that's actually what stresses me out, believe it or not. It's just trying to stay on my routine that makes me so happy the rest of the year. During the holiday season. And it's, because it's almost impossible to do that, right? And still be a part of family, especially when people are coming out of town. Yeah, so for me, that's the hardest thing, of the stress of that. And it used to be when the kids were younger, it was like, Oh my gosh, the teachers are sending these kids home for Christmas break. And I knew the teachers were like, yeah, we're on Christmas break, now they're older. So it's now I actually get excited about the kids being off school because it's like, we actually get to see our children, so that's fun. How about you? I would say, so this is getting less and less stressful each year, but it was probably the most stressful the first year we got married. Yeah. I think a lot of people go through this. The balance of when you're growing up and you spend every single holiday with your family and you're always there for everything. And then when you get married and you have to, and we don't have to, but we do everything together with this stuff. And we have to find a way to spend as much time as possible and be as part of it. The most things as possible with both families and just finding that balance, and I think that we're very lucky that we have two pairs of parents that understand that and support us in that but I think that was stressful at first, just trying to figure out that balance, and we figured out a way to make it work, and Katie's family loves Christmas Day, that's their big thing, they love that so we do Christmas Day there. My mom loves cooking Thanksgiving dinner, so we do Thanksgiving dinner there. And then the Ohio State game, like I said before, the Ohio State game is that Saturday after. So we've found our balance there. But I would say that's probably the biggest thing that hangs over my head coming into this time of year. Just trying to make sure we make everybody happy and get to spend as much time as possible with everyone we love. And now, I'd be remiss if I didn't and I'll be lectured if I don't, recognize the fact that New Year's Eve will be my third wedding anniversary. Okay. I haven't even started really thinking about that, which I probably should. You might want to get on that. But I'm really focused on Thanksgiving, and then after Thanksgiving, like I know a lot of people have already ordered all their Christmas gifts and everything, and they're like, overachievers. And I usually start thinking about Christmas around the 15th of December. Yeah. And I go shopping on like the 23rd or 24th, to try to get it done. But, but no, I do need to be thinking about, I've got a wedding anniversary coming up, which is pretty exciting. And the nice thing about a 1231 wedding anniversary is every year, Kerry and I are able to sit down and think about like, how do we want to spend New Year's Eve? Because there's always, there's thousands of different options, right? So you can go lowbrow, you can go highbrow, you can just sit on the couch at home and watch TV. You can do anything. And that's part of the fun, I think of, and I, even more so than Thanksgiving and Christmas, I absolutely just love New Year's Eve. I just love the idea of I remember somebody the other day said, they said everyone, makes New Year's Eve a resolution, if you will, but most of them really aren't resolutions, they're goals they're like, I hope to do this, or I'm going to try to do this, or, whereas, the difference between a goal and a resolution is more I'm not doing this. And so I think that I'm looking forward this year to New Year's Eve and making some new. True resolutions for 2024. Try to turn them into resolutions instead of just goals. Yeah, and really see some success in them. And I and maybe the kids are at an age now where I can actually start to have those conversations with them. Yeah. And get them a little more focused on that, that the calendar is turning, but there's more than just that. Yeah. There's something refreshing about being able to, not necessarily hit the reset button, but feel like you have a little bit of a fresh start on some things. And that's refreshing. Thank you everyone for tuning in. Dave and I just needed a therapy session with each other today, so we didn't dive into the extra financial stuff as much. We just needed to air out what we were doing for the holidays, our excitements, our stresses. We'd love to hear yours, so if you have any, give us a call. And if you've got any kind of recipes, Dave just said, I'm going on a diet. I'm trying to not eat more and I gotta be in bed by eight, but I am so weak. But I want your recipes. Yeah, if you've got any pie recipes or cookies or cakes or, espresso, coffee, drinks, or something that will keep me up, right? That will keep me awake, 2024. That would be, man, that would be perfect. I will take em. Next month we'll be diving into your last minute tips for the end of the year financial things that you may have forgotten about or may have procrastinated. I know nothing about procrastinating, of course, but I'm sure there are some people out there. That do that so can imagine into that so thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you next month