How to save money the easy way
Get started today by slowly increasing your savings rate and splitting your raise in two.
The post How to save money the easy way appeared first on Discover Bank – Banking Topics Blog.
Get started today by slowly increasing your savings rate and splitting your raise in two.
The post How to save money the easy way appeared first on Discover Bank – Banking Topics Blog.
You probably already know you need to save more money â but where do you start? The thought of stockpiling away funds isnât glamorous, but learning some simple tricks for how to save money as early as possible will be beneficial in the long run by establishing good habits. And itâs easier than you may
The post How to Save Money in Just 6 Simple Steps appeared first on MintLife Blog.
Welcome back to The Clumsy Travelerâs financial planning series to save for an amazing vacation. Todayâs post will tell you everything I do to save before traveling or making any major travel purchases. If youâre wondering where Iâm going for my birthday trip the answer is: No, I still havenât chosen my location. This
The post The Clumsy Traveler Saves for a Trip appeared first on MintLife Blog.
If the authorities pull you over on the water, they may ask to see your identification or your fishing license. They may want to count your complement of life jackets. But they probably wonât ask about your boat insurance. Very few states — only Hawaii, Arkansas, and Utah — require residents to insure boats the […]
The post Boat Insurance | Protection On (And Off) The Water appeared first on Good Financial Cents®.
The holidays are here, and so is the holiday shopping season. The average person spends around $900 on gifts for the holiday season. That amount doesn’t even account for other holiday spending, such as travel costs, food, get togethers, decorations, and more. Some people even go into credit card debt to spend for the holidays, but […]
The post How To Save Money On Holiday Shopping appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.
If your goal is to save money, budgeting and tracking your spending can go a very long way. But now, thanks to science, there are some new discoveries proving that building wealth and having more self-control around spending has much ado with having the right mindset and certain disciplines. Consider these four behavioral tricks that
The post 4 Mind & Behavioral Tricks to Help You Save appeared first on MintLife Blog.
When I graduated from college, I was one of the âlucky onesâ with a lower-than-average student debt load. While I âonlyâ had $10,000 in loans, it still took me seven years to pay them off. These days, with the average student loan debt for the Class of 2018 looming at $29,800, it could take you
The post Student Loan Assistance Programs: What You Need to Know appeared first on MintLife Blog.
I have partnered with Rakuten in today’s article. Don’t forget to enter the easy $250 giveaway at the end too! The holiday season is here, which means that you may have some spending to do. Between gifts, travel, clothing for yourself, and more, it may be an expensive month for you. In fact, the average […]
The post How To Get Easy Cash Back When Shopping Online For The Holidays + $250 Giveaway appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.
For many, the idea of saving can be overwhelming. With so many expenses to pay for, such as mortgage payments, car insurance, student loans, food, and much more, setting aside unspent money can seem impossible. However, there are plenty of ways you can start growing your savings, even if it only means setting aside a
The post 12 Easy Ways to Save Money appeared first on MintLife Blog.
HO HO HO!
Just like that, the holiday season is upon us!
This year, I intend to do most of my Christmas shopping during a three-week tour of Europe with my cousins. We’re deliberately visiting as many Christmas markets as possible, so I hope to find a variety of interesting and unusual gifts for my family and friends. (They need to be small, though. I don’t have much space to carry things home.)
While I’m buying new (and possibly expensive) gifts this year, that’s not normally my style. I’m a fan of keeping Christmas frugal.
Being a frugal shopper doesn’t mean you can’t give thoughtful gifts though. In fact, my experience has shown that it’s often more fun and rewarding to impose limits on gift-giving. These limits breed creativity and inspiration. “Christmas on a budget” doesn’t have to mean “Christmas without fun”.
This article contains some smart ways to save money on Christmas gifts while celebrating the season. (These tips are great for Christmas, for Hanukkah, for Kwanzaa, for Festivus, or for whatever feast you celebrate this time of year.)
It’s an amazing frugal Christmas savings spectacular!
I have this idea in my head that kids become mercenaries at Christmas, demanding the newest, most popular toys. I’m not sure how I’ve arrived at this notion because that’s certainly not how my brothers and I were when we were younger. Sure, we wanted cool stuff, but we never made demands.
In fact, Dad used to tell the story of how ashamed he was one Christmas when he and Mom were going through a particularly rough patch. They were always poor and struggling with money, but this year was especially bad. They couldn’t afford Christmas presents for us three boys. Rather than cry about it, we went through the toys we already had, wrapped them up, and gave them to each other.
I have only a dim memory of this myself, but Dad used to talk about it often.
This bit of personal family history reminds me of Unplug the Christmas Machine by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli. This book urges readers to escape the commercialism of the holiday season, to make it a “joyful, stress-free” time for the family. In a chapter entitled “The Four Things Children Really Want for Christmas”, the authors write:
One concern voiced by most parents is that of shielding their children from the excesses of holiday commercialism. While adults can mute the TV when the ads get annoying, children are defenseless against the onslaught of ads. As early as the age of four or five, they can lose the ability to be delighted by the sights and sounds of Christmas, only to gain a two-month-long obsession with brand-name toys. Suddenly, all they seem to care about is how many presents they will be getting and how many days are left until they unwrap them.
Many parents find it a challenge to create a simple value-centered Christmas in the midst of all the commercial pressure. But the task is made much easier when parents keep in mind the four things that children really want for Christmas.
Robinson and Staeheli argue that children don’t really want clothes and toys and games. The four things they actually want are:
Because I don’t have kids, I don’t have first-hand experience with their expectations around the holidays. Other folks in the GRS community do, though. A reader named PB, for instance, emailed some similar thoughts. She writes:
We keep our children’s expectations realistic by following an old tradition â that Santa fills the stockings and only the stockings â nothing under the tree. This limits the size and quantity of gifts. Plus, because they’re all relatively sure what they can and cannot wheedle out of parents for tree presents, their expectations are kept in check.
We buy one new outfit for each, usually a special piece of clothing that they really want, and spent only about $100 per child. I also shop all year long and get some real bargains.
We also emphasize doing a lot of things with our church â food delivery to the elderly, singing at nursing homes, and service to others. Our ongoing tradition is a big Christmas eve dinner with lots of friends and then the midnight service, where we all play an instrument or sing in the choir. This is what the kids talk about â not about what they receive.
It seems that the key to keeping kids happy at Christmas is to manage their expectations. But what about exchanging gifts with other adults?