 Alright, this year's holiday shopping season was a record breaker thanks to a very strong economy right now. The National Retail Federation says that on average people spend a total of $967.13 this year around the holidays. That is a lot of money on average. So how do you make sure your holiday spending doesn't drive you into debt? Here with Money Hacks for a happy new year from the stock swoosh Melissa Armo. Melissa, thanks so much for coming on this morning. The first one you've got here, and a Merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas and happy new year. And happy new year coming up here in just a few days, I can't believe it. Use a credit card and don't use cash, you say? Well, I mean if you use a credit card you can pay it off in 30 days so that's the nice thing about the card. A lot of people feel like if they have cash they'll spend less, but you get to put off the payment if you use a card and also there's 0% interest cards out there, low interest cards, so it's really up to you, but in New York, I mean I don't carry a lot of cash. I don't know about you, you know, walking around the city. So it depends how safe you feel pain with a card versus the cash where you live. And there's a lot of cards out there that'll give you 18 months, no interest. I mean you get 18 months, you can spend, you know, 10, 12, 15 grand if you want to. Yeah, all right. That's good advice. All right, wait 24 hours before you make a big purchase. It's a 24 hour rule, in fact that goes for everything. Right, yeah. That's just a standard. But I will say though that if you want to buy something big, sometimes people say, well wait 30 days and I think 24 hours is enough. In 24 hours from now, if you still want to make that big purchase, even if you can't pay it off right away, if you could pay it off in a reasonable period of time and you really want it, and by reasonable I say 6 to 12 months, 6 to 12 months is a good time, I think you can go ahead and buy it. So that's that one. And then three is really if you're trying to get somewhere with your debt and you find that you're coming into getting some debt because of the credit cards you were talking about spending almost $1,000 a person, chunk it out, you know, give yourself time to pay it off. You can set up minimum payments with your credit cards, you can pay extra and even set that up. Yeah. You can even automatically have an extra amount coming out each month. So you can be accountable to yourself, you know, when you're spending. Have a plan. But don't, you know, don't allow yourself not to spend. Okay, and this is, I think this is some great advice here. If you got some extra money, bump up the 401K because you know you're going to need it someday. Yes. Well, it's free money. At least what your employer is going to match. And the January is a good time to start that, you know, and you know, with all the new things for the tax reform, people are going to see a tax savings. If you start that right of ways now in 2018, that's good because you're going to, a lot of people are going to see the savings for their taxes. And so if they contributed to the 401K, do the match, some employers match up to 4%. Right. I mean, it is free money. So I definitely would say do it. And yeah, you're right. A lot of people are going to have bigger paychecks here in just a matter of weeks now. So that's great news. And change your attitude on money. Tell me what this means. Well, I would say in general, a lot of people when they're thinking about money, and this is very important for the new year because having a new fresh attitude is a great way to start off January. Have a good relationship with money. Whatever you focus on is going to expand. So for example, if you're focusing on, I don't have enough debt, lack, you know, that kind of thing, you're going to get more of that. So what you want to focus on is having a healthy relationship with money, which is a circle. Money comes in, money goes out. You know, it's not about just hoarding your money anyways. You can spend. It's OK to have debt. If you would have a good relationship with money, then where it's coming in and you feel like you can spend, it's the freedom. It's the emotions associated with it. Feel positive about money. Don't feel negative about it. Perfect. Melissa, thank you so much for coming on this morning. Great advice in the finance world on time when a lot of people are really tight is this time of the year. All right, Melissa, thanks so much. All right, 54 minutes after the hour.