It’s finally fall y’all! Normally, this would fill me with delight. It’s pumpkin time, mixed with some hot chocolate, and caramel apples filling in any of the gaps. Fun, fun, fun! If, you can afford it all that is 😣. The economy right now sucks. So, what can you still do? Well. It’s time to see the light.
Actually, that should be several thousand lights.
Ready or not, the holiday season is officially upon us! However, we must not forget that along with all that hustling and bustling, there’s also the decorations. Several households have been getting set up since last weekend.
That means you can do what I did last night, and take a spin around the neighborhood to see what’s-what. Best of all…its all free!
The haunted houses, mickey arches, and fever dream recreations are all waiting for you to drive by and check them out. So far, only the die hard yard decorators have shown up, but there is always more that will join them in the coming weeks. To think, these areonly the Halloween decorations so far.
Good news for us, because it gives us an excuse to do it all again, and again this n the coming months.
What would an ideal week look like? Well, let’s start off with it probably including enough money to feel comfortable.
Yeah, yeah. I know “money can’t buy buy happinesses.” To that I say, poverty can’t stave off depression either.
I’m not implying that you have to be rich, but being financially set, to the point that you don’t have to be constantly worrying matters. Once you’ve squared away the financial issues, you’re free to really relax and enjoy whatever you want. For example, spending the entire week avoiding your job. I know, the irony is not lost on me.
My itinerary? Let’s just say there’d be a lot of naps.
This probably won’t come as a shock to anyone, but prices on most things today are still really high. Sure, a few items have come down a bit, but several others continue to go up, or suffer from shrinkflation. Many of us are constantly on the lookout for ways to save. So, once again various articles, YouTube clips, and memes have popped up to help. Most of the suggestions are tried and true, such as make a list before shopping, check multiple store ads before buying, or stock up when something’s on sale. All are good pieces of advice, but one other suggestion might need to be rethought, which is “do your shopping online.”
The convenience factor of shopping online is definitely a plus, so why would you ever need to flip the script on this shopping habit? Well, sadly, it’s because shopping this way might be costly you money.
First, let me clarify that I’m not advocating getting rid of online shopping. It is convenient, can be timesaving, and often helps with matching up price saving options, with products I’m buying. However, despite all of this, you might also be paying more for some items than you would if you shopped in store. Sorry me items are actually going down in price, but you can only see it if you physically walk into a brick and mortar location. For example, I recently visited a local Target, and saw that the pack of napkins I usually get had dropped in price. Great! I didn’t really need any right then, but I was happy to see that the price was reduced (Not: reduced, as in not on sale or clearance.). However, when I tried to buy it online a week later, I saw it was still listed at the higher price. In order to get the cheaper price, I had to go into the store.
Why, you might be wondering? Well, there could be a couple of reasons. First they didn’t update the website, or second, this was a reduction for that geographic location only (and web prices can tend to be less city specific in the same way). Either way, it remains true that I have to physically shop in store in order to pay less for this item.
What options are you left with then? I’d say they flipping the script we will help, but you’re probably going to need a hybrid approach, which will require you to be more actively engaged in your shopping choices. Occasionally, visit a couple of your local stores, and compare prices (sadly, most retailers these days are usually some sort of dynamic pricing, so there will be differences even between two local targets or Walmarts). Then see how prices online look. Find your acceptable balance between the two, and make your buying choices. Then, be ready to do it all over again next month. 😕
Welcome to Thanksgiving weekend. Now I know we’re all exhausted at this point, and you probably still have a ton to do. Therefore, I’m going to keep this short.
Whatever you’ve already bought, take a breath, and then reevaluate your choices. Once you’re done, get ready to take it back. Really consider what you’ve done, and why. Even if they asked for those toys, do they really need all of them at once? Could they maybe wait till their birthday for a few of them; or maybe simply do without the entire list being filled, almost as if they’d placed an Amazon order?
Make these decisions now, because getting rid of this stuff later will be so much harder. Trust that you’re wallet, and bank account will thank you later.
For any one person who loves to play the lottery, there’s another person who equally loves to chide them for throwing their money away. This is a battle of ideologies.
One says that someone has to win, and if that person is me, then all my fantasies can come true. People who follow this line of thinking will often think of all the ways they’d go about spending, savings, investing, and even giving away some of those winnings.
As hopeful as the first mentality might be, the other way of thinking takes a decidedly more glass half full kind of approach. They will actively argue that the likelihood of that winner being you is astronomically not in your favor. Therefore, by purchasing that ticket you might as well be flushing it down the toilet. Theses people will also follow up by declaring that if you’d put that ticket money in a savings instead, then you’d be better off financially for real.
While both standpoints have their pros and cons, theirs is an argument that will probably never end. However, that leaves us with the question, are either of them actually right? I mean, yeah, you literally can’t win if you don’t play; however it’s equally true that the vast majority of tickets purchased will not result in even a free ticket type win. I guess it ultimately comes down to what makes you happier, the hope of winning, or the knowledge you have money set aside for savings.
I guess one way to test the success of both options would be to run a month long experiment. It would be simple enough. All you’d have to do is 1st, buy however many lotto tickets you normally would throughout the course of the month. Then, once you’ve made your lottery purchase for the week, let’s say you spent $5, you will then also place $5 into an envelope for savings. The next time you purchase lottery tickets you do the same thing, and so on, for a month. Then, at the end of the month look at how playing the lotto made you feel vs. how still having the money in the envelope does. Perhaps this is how we can finally figure out which path works best for us individually.
So, how about it, are you game to try? If you do, please leave a comment below, and tell us how it went.
Recycling as a practice has its pros and cons. We’ve all been hearing recently about how only a fraction of what we send out to be recycled ever actually is, but to not even try isn’t an option either. While the variety of arguments we could go through regarding this topic are plentiful, that’s not what we’re here to talk about today. Nope, instead we need to talk about identity theft.
Now before you hit the back button, and double check that you clicked on the right article link, hear me out. Hopefully, everyone is aware that before certain types of paperwork can go into the recycling bin (such as financial or medical papers) it needs to be shredded first (the tinier the cross-cut the better). This is especially true for those annoying, unsolicited credit card applications that we all keep getting in the mail.
Usually you would just have to shred the intro letter and the application, and the shiny brochure and outer envelope didn’t have to be first put through the machine (saving you some time, and the wear-and-tear on your shredder). Sadly, that is no longer the case. Thanks to the enthusiastic adoption of QR codes, now the whole thing probably needs to be sliced and diced.
If you take the time to look through some of those credit card packets (and let’s face it, they’re usually the thickest envelopes anyone receives these days), you’ll see QR codes on a majority of the pages. This can often include the shiny brochure too, and occasionally even the outer envelope. If you’re lucky, that might just be a generic code that goes to a blank application when you scan it. However, to make the application process easier, some of those codes will link to a very personalized (and partially filled out) application instead.
Thanks to that, you can’t risk just tossing any part of the packet anymore. Instead, to safeguard yourself from identity theft threats, you have to make sure you shred anything that looks like an application, has a QR code on it, or has a personalized web address for you to use (which is basically the address that the QR code contains, but it’s just typed out for you instead).
Nope, the thing to do is simply shred it all if you have to. Yes, there’s supposed to be a way to stop getting the solicitations in the first place, but if you’re like me, you just haven’t found the time to go through the process yet. If you’re determined to get it done now though, ironically you’ll be able to find that info in tiny little letters in the packet too. It’ll just be considerably harder to read. Good luck Everyone, and have a Happy 4th of July!
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