Spending Seasons … the Big One Is Coming!
Rapidly, we coming onto another spending season. The … Big … ONE!
Throughout the year, there are many selected spending seasons: back to school, special occasions like anniversaries and birthdays, Memorial weekend, Veterans Day, Mothers and Father’s Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, weddings …and of course, the BIG ONE: Christmas
Retail stores shout out specials and deals. I always tune into Memorial Day weekend events—it’s because my local garden stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s have amazing discounts on bags of mulch for the garden … as in five for $10 versus the usual $4 for each! Who doesn’t want to get a true two for one?
All such occasions may hit you were hurts, in your wallet and credit card and the wrong time. Just as you think you are getting your financial life in order, paying off your credit cards and charge accounts along comes a birthday or an anniversary or a special occasion in your workplace. The basket or hat emerges and YOU are expected to add something for the special occasion kitty from your coworkers.. And everybody chips in.
At the accounting firm where I got my experience for my CPA license as a newbie accountant, the partners gave the secretarial staff a “kitty” to cover special occasions. The partners actually funded it, so no one had to pull from their own wallets. It was a welcomed benefit for all of us who were just starting out and living on the month-to-month plan.
As you make a list of all the things that need to go into your budget remember to make room for Spending Seasons. And if the basket gets passed to you in your workplace, if you can only add $2, that’s what you add. You don’t need to put yourself into a financial bind.
And a suggestion … create a special place that you can build a “stash” for occasions. One of my friends had a large 5-gallon water container that he dropped all coins and one-dollar bills into. He did it for 18 years from the day of his daughter’s birth … enough money was stashed to funded her first year of college.
Patricia Lane Williams, is a retired CPA has worked with thousands of men and women sounding the warnings. She is the author of the Amazon bestseller, Money: Get It. Save It. Grow It … Before Debt Steals It. It’s her first book in the Four Corners Prosperity series. Her website is www.PatWilliamsAuthor.com.