giving

Buy yourself a merry little Christmas?

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thFewer of us plan to “self-gift” this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. Of the 6,415 U.S. consumers surveyed by the NRF, only 57% will buy themselves somethin’ pretty, compared to 59% in 2012.

Still, that’s quite a few folks assured of getting at least one gift they really, really like.

Nothing wrong with wanting to treat yourself, especially given some of the prices on Gray Thursday, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and every other sale from now until Dec. 24. Not that every “sale” price is a good one; in fact, some aren’t really good deals at all.

But if you’ve been tracking prices, especially for bigger-ticket items like technology and appliances, then I can think of only one reason not to self-gift.

 

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The gift of personal finance.

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thGot a relative or friend who’s financially at sea? Or someone who’s just starting out and who could easily develop bad money habits?

Maybe that’s a middle-aged recent divorcee, a single-mom friend who’s got more month than money, or a slacker cousin who at 35 hasn’t done a thing about retirement.

Or perhaps you know young professionals who are racking up consumer debt, or parents-to-be wondering if one of them can stay home and not torpedo their financial and professional goals.

You might be able to help: This holiday season, give the gift of personal finance.

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Want a $50 gift card? Swagbucks is giving one away.

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th-1I’m doing almost all of my holiday shopping with free gift cards from MyPoints, Swagbucks and a couple of rewards credit cards.

That’s not due to my recent personal economic downturn, however: I always shop this way. If I can get promissory scrip by using a particular site, search engine or credit card, why wouldn’t I?

If you’re starting to wonder how much you can afford to spend for the holidays, this might interest you: My favorite rewards program, Swagbucks, has offered me a special signup code for new referrals (more on that in a minute), and a chance for both new and old referralss to win a $50 gift card.

Interested? I thought so.

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14 ways to get off the kid-gift treadmill.

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14 ways to get off the kid-gift treadmill.Last week I went to a nearby Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft to buy a book of brain teasers from the dollar section (60 cents with coupon – an inexpensive stocking stuffer for a young relative). An older woman was visibly fretting as she picked things up and put them down.

“What do you buy for someone who already has everything?” she asked me.

Seems that her two granddaughters, ages 4 and 6, drop by fairly regularly.  Some time ago she started buying little gifts for each visit, and now she’s wishing she hadn’t. Although the first thing they want to know when they cross the threshold is what they’re getting, they often don’t even bother to take the items home.

I gently asked if it were stressful always to have to come up with a new and exciting gift. She nodded, then shrugged and said, “But they expect it.”

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When helping your parents hurts you.

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When helping your parents hurts you.Last month I was contacted by Kira Reginato, an elder-care management specialist and host of a weekly radio program in Santa Rosa, California. She’d come across an article I did for MSN Money called “Are you your parents’ ATM?”

Reginato invited me to be on her program, “Call Kira About Aging,” to talk about this very sensitive issue. If you’d like to hear the result, you can access the podcast here.

No time to listen? Let me give you a few of the highlights, starting with some frightening stats regarding folks currently in their 40s and 50s. According to the Pew Research Center:

  • 27% provide primary support for a grown child.
  • 21% have provided financial support to a parent aged 65 or older in the past year.
  • 38% say both their grown children and their parents rely on them for emotional support.

Anybody but me think that sounds not only emotionally but financially exhausting?

Specifically: If you’re helping out parents whose money isn’t stretching far enough and/or picking up the slack for your under- or unemployed kids, what happens to your own finances?

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A brief Swagbucks heads-up.

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thA shout-out to anyone who uses the Swagbucks rewards site: Another set of five “Collector’s Bills” starts on Monday, July 1.

Every time a new batch of Collector’s Bills comes along I get absurdly focused on earning all five. Guess I really am an American: I like to collect the whole set.

This time the theme is “Swagbucks Around the World,” with images of famous sites. Together they add up to 54 SBs and you’ll get a bonus of 20 SBs if you collect all five bills, which are awarded at random when you search the Internet.

Since you can earn the same image more than once it can be a little confusing. To check how many of the five you’ve stashed, go to the landing page and click on “My Swag Bucks,” then on the “Collector’s Bills” tab. The deadline to catch ’em all is July 8.

A second shout-out to those who don’t use Swagbucks: Give it a try. I cash my SBs in solely for Amazon gift cards, which I use for holiday and birthday presents, specialty items for myself (everything from olive oil to wool socks), and get-well or “just because” gifts for friends. But you can choose from other gift cards, electronics, housewares, health and beauty items, jewelry, daily deals and more.

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Just in time for Valentine’s Day: Chocolate-scented toiletries.

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chocolate_0The every-Friday giveaway fell by the wayside for a few weeks. I missed it again last week because I was waiting for a couple of items to arrive from Good Earth Beauty.

They sat in the mailbox until my roommate got home late Friday evening and I must admit that the first glimpse caused me to make the girl-noise. Take a look at the accompanying photo and you’ll see why.

Couldn’t use them right away, because they were solidly frozen. But oh, how delicious they smelled on Saturday morning.

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I’m dreaming of a stripped-down Christmas.

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Hello Kitty © by SomeDriftwood

A single-mom blogger who goes by “Mutant Supermodel” is stressing over the holiday. She’d saved to buy gifts, but when her husband quit paying child support she had to spend every dime to keep herself and her three kids afloat.

It isn’t that MS fears there will be no Christmas. It’s that she fears she won’t be the one giving it.

“My kids are blessed with a large, loving extended family who will surely shower them with gifts the way they do at every special occasion,” she writes in a post called “$tre$$.”

“I know they don’t need or even want more stuff but I want to give it to them.”

Yet she doesn’t want to become part of the “relentless consumerism that so deeply affects this country.” Her compromise: Make some of her gifts, and limit the children’s Santa lists to that old favorite, “something I want, something I need, something to wear, something to read.”

“I think it’s better this way than a free for all,” MS concluded.

Me too – and I say that as someone who’s feeling the same contradictory clash of emotions.

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The crap that crowds us.

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I’ve been on a major de-cluttering kick in preparation for “Superfluity,” my church’s annual rummage sale. The idea is to strip your life of superfluous stuff. You get cleaner digs and the church raises cash for its various social programs.

Although I knew my place was getting crowded, I had no idea just how much superfluity existed around me. As I fill bag after bag I can only say, “Holy crap.”

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Valentine’s Day 2012: Let me do your shopping.

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Yep, it’s early. I’m putting the Valentine’s Day giveaway up to allow plenty of time for the winner to receive the package and re-gift it.

That is, if the winner really wants to – the items range from the sublime to the ridiculous. All might be hard to turn loose once you see them.

Let’s start with the sublime: three new kinds of chocolate.

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