With the New Year fast approaching, it’s a great time to look back on the year to see what worked for us and what we hope to improve in the year to come. Whether you’ve made great headway in your financial life or feel like your financial wellness is in dire need of some love, adopting these ten habits will transform your financial health in 2020.
In January, I love to outline my financial goals for the year. Once I know what I want to accomplish for the year, I can then break my goals down by quarter, by month, and by week to help keep me on track.
Things always change and my goals have to adjust, but this initial mapping out of my goals serves as a guide for my goals for the rest of the year. It’s also really fun and exciting to dream about what I want.
During times of uncertainty, having a clear picture of what’s happening with our money is more important than ever. Why? Many of us are trying to adjust to life with a lower income, our expenses are changing, and we’re reprioritizing our goals to ensure we have enough cash on hand. I’m going to take you through seven steps to simplify your banking, Marie Kondo style. These steps will make your life easier and will also increase your cash on hand. Win-win.
Good, cheap wine might sound like an oxymoron. We often associate good wine as being more expensive and it certainly can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Ironically, sometimes the more expensive wine isn’t better in quality.
At the Fiscal Femme, we’re all about finding win-win situations where we save money while living better. This can certainly apply to wine. Whether you are looking to enjoy a nice glass of wine, impress friends, or save money, I have you covered. I spoke with sommelier and wine educator, Hillary Zio, who shared her best tips for choosing delicious, good cheap wine.
We hear “stocks and bonds” over and over again when people talk about investing. But what exactly is a bond? How do bonds work? Do we want to be investing in them?
Understanding the basics of bonds and how they work is an important part of becoming a savvy investor so we can make the best decisions for our money.
Here’s the rundown on what a bond is, how they work, and everything else you need to know about bonds.
We tend to spend more money than usual around the holidays, and this year with inflation it’s going to be even more expensive. If you are feeling stressed about your holiday budget, we have you covered.
The good news? You can add some extra holiday cheer to your life without spending more with frugal joys.
Frugal joys are free or inexpensive things that make us really happy. If you are looking for some festive free or inexpensive treats, here are our favorite holiday frugal joys.
Many of us were hopeful that our spending was going to decrease due to stay-at-home orders, but we’ve been surprised to see that’s not always the case. Many of us are now spending more.
How can this be? Yes, we’re spending much more on groceries - stockpiling shelf-stabilized goods or paying extreme markups for toilet paper, but the main culprit for most is online shopping.
Have you ever walked into a store just to “look around” and ended up needing something you didn’t know existed five minutes earlier? Or opened up your email to get some work done and got completely side-tracked by a sales email from one of your favorite brands? Yeah, me too. Companies are getting better and better at separating us from our money, and sales are one of their favorite tactics because they combine two great marketing strategies - scarcity (time is running out!) and a great deal.
So how do we decide what to do? How do we evaluate a purchase to make sure it’s worth it? With the holidays and the biggest shopping weekend upon us, it’s the perfect time to arm ourselves with a checklist to consult before buying something on sale.
