Help me give back during the holidays

NINA MOINI: Chances are, you're getting a lot of ads right now inviting you to celebrate the holidays by spending more money. The US economy is lopsided toward this time of year. Retailers rely on holiday shopping and nonprofits too, depend on end of year donations. For the latest in our series, Professional Help, producer Alanna Elder asked an expert how to prioritize giving back during the holidays.

ALANNA ELDER: been thinking about the word disheartened, which comes up in the news often, as in, so and so was disheartened by the event or by the statement or the lack of one. Merriam-Webster says it means to have lost hope or enthusiasm. In other words, to have lost heart, like it became too much to carry.

The flip side, then, to be heartened is like the Grinch, famously, when he sees the Whos in Whoville joining together in song.

MALE: While in Whoville, they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day.

ALANNA ELDER: Recently, I got some advice about how to add more heart to the holiday season, and it came from what might sound a surprising source, a financial consultant.

My name is Nathan Dungan

NATHAN DUNGAN: And I'm the president and CEO Share Save Spend. Our work that we do with predominantly with families, is really about helping them develop healthy money habits that honor their values and, importantly, help them attend to and enhance their individual and collective well-being. The topic of money is, for most people, a tricky one. And what we're trying to do is to help people be more purposeful and intentional about how they think about money choices in relation to their values.

ALANNA ELDER: This way of thinking about money is kind of an inheritance. When he was growing up, Nathan's mother worked in financial services and his dad was a Lutheran pastor.

NATHAN DUNGAN: So the concept of Share Save Spend really came from how I grew up around money and how my parents expected us to use money, whether it was through an allowance, through a job that we had. But they just had a real expectation from, gosh, when I was even a very young boy that you would just be, one, thinking of others, two, saving, investing for the future. And then three, of course, for some spending.

ALANNA ELDER: This framework puts any money left after necessities into three buckets, for sharing, then saving, and then spending. He says it can be especially helpful during the holidays.

NATHAN DUNGAN: Because so much of the time, effort, energy is around the things, the stuff, the gadgets being the path to quote unquote happiness. If you're not purposefully and intentionally shaping the narrative around things, sometimes, unknowingly, what you're doing is you're defaulting to the cultural narrative, which is really one around materialism equals happiness, which from my perspective, is a really, and a lot of the research, too, suggests that's a false narrative.

ALANNA ELDER: In his own research on families, Nathan found that teens showed lower materialism and higher self-esteem after practicing being intentional with money and applying it to their values. And he's developed some resources with questions for getting started.

NATHAN DUNGAN: What is important to me? What does money mean to me How do I think about how my money choices reflect, or not, my values? And then around that, what might I do to be more intentional in that space?

So that could mean identifying a charity that is important to you, and then deciding that you're going to go do something for that charity. Maybe it's volunteer where you're creating a grocery list and you're buying things to donate to a homeless shelter. Or maybe you as a family are going to go give time at said shelter. Or maybe you're donating lightly used items, boots, and hats and coats to organizations in your community that can get those things to families in need.

I like the idea of donating to libraries. I mean, libraries do so much more than just lend books. They're often a front line in our community doing really amazing work for individuals and families.

ALANNA ELDER: There are lots of options out there, and some lists online. Like for people in the Twin Cities area, The group Hands On Twin Cities has a page of holiday volunteer opportunities. Minnesota Monthly also did a roundup this year.

Nathan says what you do doesn't have to be monumental to mean something. He also has a low tech way to give someone else a gift, by making it easier for them to give back.

NATHAN DUNGAN: Another activity that I started using in my very early days as a financial advisor is this idea of giving a child or a grandchild, at the holidays, something called a share check. And I in our society, we don't write checks as much as we used to anymore. However, there's something really powerful, as a counter-narrative at the holidays, in addition to giving a child a gift, also giving them this thing that we call a share check, which has everything on the check is filled out, the dollar amount, they've signed the check.

What's not filled out, though, is the pay to the order of. And then it's the opportunity of the individual, perhaps a child, to make a choice on where they want that money to go.

ALANNA ELDER: The reality for many people right now is there's not much, if any, money or even time left over. Whatever is realistic for you, Nathan Dungan says, standing in the December flood of ads and promotions and deals, and defining what matters to you is a healthy way to move into the new year, which, by the way, will bring on its own wave of messages.

Happy holidays. For "Professional Help", I'm Alanna Elder.

NINA MOINI: Do you need professional help? We can find some for you. Send your ideas for this segment to minnesotanow@nprnews.org.