The 7 Personal Finance Articles We Loved This Week
I don’t know about you, but now that Thanksgiving is over, I am in full-on Christmas mode. Quick confession: I start listening to Christmas music by myself at least a week before Thanksgiving, just to make sure I’m ready to leave it behind by January. Every year, I combat feeling like the holiday season came and went too quickly by starting it myself a little “early.” (Though, unlike my apartment building and seemingly every storefront in my neighborhood, I hold off on putting up any decorations until it’s actually December.)
One of my very favorite things about the holiday season growing up was the wall of Christmas cards in my kitchen. Each time we received a card in the mail, my mom would tape it up to the wall next to our kitchen table, so that by the time the holiday arrived, it would be entirely filled with photos and cards from family members and friends living all over the country. I loved looking at them — especially the photos of dogs and babies — to see what was going on with everyone, even if I’d only met them once or twice in my life.
I love holiday cards, but I’ve never sent out any myself — perhaps because of how expensive they tend to be, but mainly because I don’t relish the idea of sending a photo of just me to every person I know and care about. But I still loved J. Money‘s fifth pic this week, “The Patented Frugalwoods Cheap Christmas Card Trick.” While the post outlines how to make the most of online printing services to make Christmas cards as affordable as possible, I think the sentiment applies to anyone, no matter how they feel about holiday cards: If something is important to you, it’s totally worth spending some money on it. That could be a specific holiday tradition you participate in with your family, or simply your monthly #treatyourself day.
Here are the rest of this week’s personal finance picks — may we all learn a little something today!
1. Money Challenges That Don’t Suck – And Then We Saved
“Money has only cluttered my life — with things, with plans I’m not super jazzed about (but have paid for), with bills and paper and complications. I’m more than a bit excited to tap into that secret frugal, fun, industrious part of my brain again.”
2. The 20/20 Rule – The Minimalists
“Anything we get rid of that we truly need, we can replace for less than $20 in less than 20 minutes from our current location. Thus far, this hypothesis has become a theory that has held true 100% of the time.”
3. What I Learned Delivering Pizza For a Year – Justin Bariso
“The people I had the privilege of working with included: A guy who had won big bucks in the state lottery, but kept working anyway. A recovering drug addict, who turned out to be one of the smartest, most strategic thinkers I’ve ever met. A number of kind souls, each with unique situations, all struggling to make the most of their lives.”
4. The 7 Income Streams of Millionaires – Wallet Hacks
“The more money you have, the more money you’ll get. The rich do get richer — here’s the playbook.”
5. My Patented Cheap Christmas Card Hack – Frugal Woods
“Don’t fear the holidays as a frugal person. Embrace the traditions you love and spend money on the things that bring joy to you and your family.”
6. 1% More Savings = 2 Years More Freedom! – Distilled Dollar
“Saving our dollars is the only way we can truly earn our dollars. If we earn money to simply spend it on bills and recurring expenses, then that money was not truly ours to begin with. It was earmarked as soon as we received it.”
7. 13 Things You Need to Reach Your Financial Goals – Centsibly Rich
“Having a goal is not enough. You have to get your thinking right. You have to really want it and you have to actually believe that you can get it.”
Image via Unsplash
