spending

Holiday shopping hack: Unused gift cards.

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I give a lot of gift cards for birthdays and Christmas, because I like the flexibility* they provide  to the recipients. Generally I get them from rewards programs, which means that most arrive as e-gift cards. I print out two copies: one to give and one as backup in case the cards get lost.

Which isn’t me being paranoid. Lost gift cards are a thing. According to a Bankrate.com poll of nearly 2,400 adults, U.S. residents have an estimated $15.3 billion in unspent spending power just lying around. The average amount is $116 per person.

On the bright side, it was $167 per person back in January 2020. That’s progress.

These numbers are sobering – and unnecessary. That’s why I’m proposing that we all go on an unused gift card hunt. Mine happened on Sunday, quite by accident.

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5 ways to ruin the 2021 holidays.

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The pandemic has messed with my sense of time, and maybe with yours. Certainly I was startled today when I did the math and realized that Thanksgiving is just 77 days from now.

Three days after that is the first night of Hannukah. And if you’re a Christmas person, that happens in 107 days.

Some of us prepare throughout the year. If we see gift bags and/or holiday wrapping paper on deep clearance (or waving at us from the mixed-paper bin at the recycling center), we stock up.

Yard sales, thrift stores and Buy Nothing Facebook groups yield us holiday décor, serving pieces and gifts. We stash points from rewards programs/apps, planning to cash them in for gift-buying.

Not everyone is as vigilant (or hypervigilant). To those who prefer a more laid-back approach, I hereby offer some helpful tips on completely screwing up the 2021 holidays.      

1. Wait until the last minute.

So what if supply-chain issues are predicted to get worse in the coming months? Maybe they won’t!

And so what if retailers like Walmart and Amazon are struggling to get space on shipping vessels, or if the continuing microchip shortage has affected manufacturing? Surely they’ll have that all ironed out before Christmas.

You’re a busy person, after all, so it’s fine if you wait until Dec. 23 to start your shopping.

2. Relax about the mailing.

The U.S. Postal Service plans both a temporary rate hike and a first-class mail delivery slowdown starting in early October. If you don’t wrap and mail early, you’ll pay more and the stuff might not get there on time. 

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Why you need an “abundance tracker.”

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Recent talk of inflation (and the possibility of hyperinflation) has left me very jumpy. That’s why a squib in Melanie Lockert’s newsletter really resonated with me. 

“Do you ever feel like you’ll never have enough? This is a common issue when it comes to money mindset, and can impact our financial and mental health,” Lockert wrote.

“So one thing I’ve been doing lately is something I call ‘abundance tracker.’ I track all moments of abundance.”

A few recent examples:

Lockert’s health insurance premium decreased.

She received a gift card for food from someone who couldn’t use it.

She cashed in Starbucks rewards points for a free coffee.

According to Lockert, tracking “moments of abundance” can help reset your mindset: “From the discounts you get, to the gifts, time and support. It all counts.”

Turns out I’ve been doing that for the past week or so. I just didn’t know what to call it.

 

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Monday miscellany: Debt hangover edition.

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About one-third of U.S. residents took on debt for the 2020 holidays, according to a study from the Magnify Money personal finance site. Breaking it down further, there’s good, bad and worse news about these findings. The good news: Fewer people (31 percent) borrowed this year than last year (44 percent). The bad news: Those … Read more

Frugal stimulus spending.

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My fiscal stimulus* check got deposited a day earlier than the projected Jan. 4 date. Thus far I have used some of the money to:

Award $25 each to my great-nephew and great-niece, asking them to go forth and support the local economy.

Donate $25 to a GoFundMe for a Fairbanks woman in a tough situation.

Give $50 to the Food Bank of Alaska.

Buy $300 worth of gift cards at a small local restaurant. The young cashier was startled when I asked. “How much?” she said, and when I confirmed the figure she ran to get her boss. The supervisor thanked me several times and when I told him I’d done the same thing with the previous stimulus he said, “You’re helping us keep the lights on.”

Not sure where the rest of the money will go. But it will definitely go, i.e., it will definitely be spent. This is despite the advice I keep hearing to “invest it” or “save it.” Back in 2008 I resisted spending the fiscal stimulus, because I was anxious to rebuild savings depleted during my protracted divorce.

But that’s not what this money is intended to do. The idea is to give struggling businesses (local or national) a bit of a goose.

To be clear: I understand why some people would much rather build their own savings, or give the landlord a bit against the back rent, or pay down their credit card debt. I was there myself. But now I want to play some small part in helping others.

Some of you probably want the same. And I’d like to point out that it doesn’t all have to be bonbons and pretty shoes. You could also opt for frugal stimulus spending. That is, spending with an eye toward getting not just the most bang for your buck but also the most value from the result.

 

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Some frugal Christmas parodies.

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(Happy Throwback Tuesday! Yes, I know it’s supposed to be Throwback Thursday, but my sandbox, my rules. This article originally ran on Dec. 23, 2017. Get ready to sing along!)

This close to the holiday I’m still feeling the pull to buy, buy, buy. Even though we don’t have a television to deliver marketing copy six times per hour, consumerism creeps into our lives in other ways:

Ads on the classical music station (fun fact: a local shop packed and shipped more than 10 tons of Alaska king crab last Christmas).

Displays of holiday foods and gifts at the supermarket and drugstore.

Signs outside other stores.

Christmas decorations at restaurants and my neighbors’ homes.

Never mind that everyone on my list has been bought for and that all the gifts have been wrapped and either mailed or delivered. I still feel that I haven’t bought enough. That somehow I should be giving lots more. That maybe tomorrow on my way to a friend’s house I could just stop in somewhere and…

Noooope, as Lana would say on “Archer.” So I decided to banish those thoughts with humor.

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Monday miscellany: Disastrous beginner mistake edition.

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The delightful but definitely NSFW (in a good way!) personal finance blog Bitches Get Riches has tackled a topic that needs a perennial takedown: what to do with retirement funds. “PLEASE tell me you’re not making this disastrous beginner mistake with your retirement funds” is an essential read if you’re just starting out, but also … Read more

Giveaway: Another $25 gift card.

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The results are in: You guys really like gift cards. The previous gift card giveaway had 185 entries.

No surprises here. Gift cards can be used either for something you need or for something you want but couldn’t quite justify buying for yourself.

Here’s a good example: One commenter who’d previously won a gift card on my site said she used it to buy a signed copy of a book, thereby supporting a writer while indulging in something she would not otherwise have gotten. #winwin

Frankly, I wish the amount on the card were more generous. But I decided that I would rather give away a bunch of relatively small prizes than one or two big ones.

Besides, during the difficult days of the pandemic even $25 can make a difference in your life. That could mean getting a signed book, or it could mean being able to buy a few groceries or put gas in your car until the next cash – be it paycheck or unemployment benefit – comes in.

As a broke single mom, at times I had to take coins from the baby’s piggy bank to buy milk before payday. Always paid it back, but it caused me tremendous anxiety to have to open up that bank (even though the milk was for her).

 

That $25 gift card might also let you do a little holiday shopping, which was definitely something I thought about when planning this series of giveaways. While I’d never advise buying gifts that you can’t pay for in cash (or pay for in full when the credit card bill comes due), I also think it’s important to give.

 

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What I don’t spend money on.

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Note: Surviving and Thriving is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Recently I encountered an article called “Things we do NOT spend money on,” on the ModernFImily personal finance blog. Although we have some differences – they have a small child and universal healthcare, and they don’t drink soda – this is a post I could have written.

That’s because it’s the kind of thing I’ve been writing about, for pay and for my own site, since 2007:

How to have the best life you can on the money you currently have, without losing your dignity or your hopes for the future.

How not to overpay even when times are good, in order to make your money go further in terms of helping others

How to edit the noise in your life so you can focus on what matters to you personally.

Their post inspired me to make my own, and to invite you guys to chime in with your experiences. So here goes, divided into a few broad categories.

 

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What kind of giveaway do you want?

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Steph was the best beloved this week by the random number generator, and wins the giveaway of a bag of Three-Peckered Billy Goat Coffee and Alaska Moka Bar.

Now I need some input from you, readers: What kind of giveaway prizes do you want?

Because this has been such a rough year financially for so many, I plan to do more giveaways in time for holiday giving. In keeping with my recent post about shopping where you live, I would like for some of those giveaways to be local: Alaska jewelry, art, books, calendars and, probably, coffee and chocolate because they’re so popular.

However, this stuff gets expensive and cumbersome to mail if I can’t order it sent directly from the folks who produce it. That, in turn, puts the burden on the entrepreneurs.

So I propose to mix it up: some Alaska stuff and I’ll bite the bullet, postage-wise (seriously: have you checked those flat-rate shipping costs lately?) and also some gift cards.

The question is: What kind(s)?

 

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