Budget Mondays

Monday – 11/25/2013

It’s Monday – a painful day for most people, yours truly included. Sometimes it is made even more painful as we remember just how much money we ended up spending over the weekend.

Budget

It’s one word that can make people cringe, angry and sad all at the same time, a rare occurrence indeed. There are plenty of reasons for this – people are told at work that their budgets are being cut, their ideas cannot be funded because they are not in the budget, and in our personal life, our budgets don’t usually quite match up to our desires.

The holiday season is here – Thanksgiving is this Thursday and then, for all intents and purposes, it is a sprint through New Year’s. A large part of this time of year is the entertaining that goes on — office parties, family parties, organization (political, professional, non-profit, and community) parties all occur within the next 5-week period. Entertaining can be a great opportunity to enjoy time with friends and family, but it can also be tough on your budget. All of the great budget habits, tips, and strategies that have been developed during the year sometimes vanish during the holiday season.

Food, drinks, and decorations can be expensive, and this is especially true if you are entertaining outside your home, or having the event catered. The holidays are a festive and wonderful time of year, with many opportunities for you to share time with the people who mean the most to you, but it can also be budget-friendly!

Let’s look at a few tips:

•Provide the venue for the party, and have everyone bring food & drinks. This serves two purposes — it helps keep the cost of entertainment down and allows people to bring the food and drinks that they actually want to have!

•Throw a brunch or lunch party. This time of year is super-busy for virtually everybody, and it can be tough to find an evening when everyone is available. Proposing a lunch or brunch solves those problems.

•Throw a holiday decorating/movie night. Decorating for the holidays is sometimes the most fun activity of the holiday season, so make a party out of it! Invite friends and family, and spend some time decorating. With a little nice holiday background music and maybe a movie to wrap up the day, you can get a lot of great family time together!

As always, there are links with more information

Happy Reading!

http://www.kiplinger.com/article/spending/T062-C000-S001-holiday-entertaining-on-a-budget.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/holiday-entertaining-on-a-budget-1323209745867