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3 Steps For A More Enjoyable and Affordable Holiday Season!
We have the holidays upon us, so I thought this would be the perfect to talk about holiday spending, planning and sanity. I love to think of the last quarter of the year as a time of celebration and spending extra time with the ones that I love. But it has become such a stressful time of year for American’s. Why? Maybe it is because of the amount of money we are spending to celebrate. From October to New Year’s American’s spend $1.5 trillion, yes, I said trillion dollars on four holidays. That averages out to about $12,000 per household. Wowzer!!! That is a lot of money for four days…
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Trimming the Budget Fat
You have just finished creating your budget. You have a list of all of the money you have coming in and all of the money going out. Uh Oh! The amount of money going out is higher than what is coming in. What can you do? Sort out the Need from the Want and then trim the fat! First Steps to Take – Separate Needs and Wants: First, separate your spending into two lists: Need and Want. Let’s consider the Wants as things that you can live without. Prioritize that list of Wants so you can see what is most important to you. We will put that list aside and…
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Creating a Budget
We have all heard things like: “It’s important to stay within your budget.” But what IS a budget? How do you create one? A budget is simply a list. But it is a very important list. This list shows you where your money comes from and where it goes. Having one allows you to figure out what you can and cannot afford. Here are some steps to get you started creating your budget: Pull out all of your bills. Yes, ALL of them. Even the nasty ones you wish would just disappear. It is important to know exactly what money you need to pay out each month.…
