Browsing Tag

holiday tips

Three Ways To Make Your Thanksgiving More Economical

Thanksgiving is a time of plenty and many people center their celebrations around a traditional holiday meal. With the rising cost of food, you may be wondering how to keep the holiday both festive and affordable. Here are three ways to make sure your Thanksgiving is delicious without breaking the bank.

1. Reduce Waste
Food waste is a common problem year round but it tends to be even more pronounced with holiday meals. With all the snacks, side dishes, and desserts, there is just more food than can be eaten. However, there are some easy ways to reduce food waste. Know how many people you are feeding and plan accordingly with menu and quantity. For example, if no one at your party likes cranberry sauce, don’t serve it. It’s also a good idea to have a plan for leftovers so they get eaten rather than thrown away.

November 14, 2016

Money Saving Tips

Home Energy Bills: 5 Ways To Save During The Holidays

When you’re in the midst of entertaining guests, decorating your home (on both the inside and outside) and doing a lot of holiday cooking, it’s totally understandable how your energy bills could end up being higher than they are any time of the year. However, just because that is a reality for many, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t certain things that you can do this year to avoid spending more than what is in your budget.

If you’d like some tips on how you can save on your home energy bills during the holidays, we have five helpful ones for you below:

Change your window treatments. If you happened to walk past one of your windows, felt a bit of a draft and you don’t have double-pane windows installed, it could be that there’s a crack or small hole around the sides of your windows. One way to fix it is by applying some caulking. Also, go to a local Target or Wal-Mart to purchase some thermal curtains. They come in a variety of styles and colors, they’re affordable and they’re specifically designed to keep cold air from coming into the rooms of your house.

Check your insulation. One of the reasons why we have insulation inside of our homes is to help protect us from outside temperatures. So, in order to make sure that you have the proper support that you need, go into your attic to make sure that your insulation appears light and fluffy (as opposed to hard and broken) and that it’s about 12″ in thickness. If it’s not, replace your insulation with sheep’s wool, cotton or aerogel.

October 31, 2013

Travel & Entertainment

The Easiest Way To Make Vacations Affordable

Whether you want to go on a vacation three hours away, or you want to vacation halfway across the globe, there are ways to make everything about your trip affordable. You can find many excellent discounts online, and in addition to this, if you do your research properly, you will be able to plan out your trips well in advance, buy early, and save substantial amounts of money by locking in your rates for your trips well before anyone else has even thought of taking a trip.

Buy Well in Advance

Sometimes, the best way in to save money on a trip is to have it planned out months in advance. While this isn’t possible for everyone, this is an especially good idea for those with fixed schedules, or those who have specific paid vacation times. If you can purchase your plane tickets, hotel fees, or even train fare far in advance, you will have a much easier time of finding better rates. If you are traveling to specific events, there are often special rates for that particular event if you preorder your rooms, for example, within a certain time period. Buying well in advance also allows you to better plan out your activities and budget for certain activities that you would like to do. If it is all already paid for (and much more affordably, too), you will have a much more relaxing trip and you can just focus fun during your vacation as you won’t have to worry about excessive spending.

July 29, 2013