Keeping Up With The Bulls

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Personal Finance Blogging Year 2 Stats

01.10.2021 by admin // 4 Comments

Personal Finance Blogging, Personal Finance Blog, Blogging lessons, how to blog

Keeping Up With The Bulls is officially 2 years old! They say the second year is much easier; however, the pandemic derailed things a bit. When I was off in 2019 for the holidays I pre-wrote a lot of content knowing I had a busy year ahead at work. Then, the pandemic hit. And, a lot of this content didn’t seem relevant. We were shocked, concerned about our health, uncertainty about our jobs. Many of my articles just seemed tone deaf and irrelevant. Last Dec – Feb I started a saving money attending wedding series and a saving money celebrating holidays series. Even the content I wrote at the start of the year was immediately irrelevant. Nevertheless, this personal finance blog improved over the past year, I’ve learned a lot more about how to blog and I’m excited to continue to improve it in 2021.

A Whirlwind of a Year Led to the Blog on the Back Burner

In March, I stopped caring about the goals I set for my personal finance blog and focused on buying groceries like most of the world. I wrote a few new articles that were a little more relevant for the times like Fast Easy Recipes With Few Ingredients and Self Care at Home for any Budget. With pure luck, I happened to write Tips for Working Remotely back in February bringing my total relevant content to 3 blog posts.

After surviving March, I went in waves with this blog. Some weeks I was super motivated and thought we’re home always, this is my opportunity to really bring my blog to the next level. But most weeks it wasn’t a focus. I decided to build out a career section because so much content out there focused on side hustles and not enough on making more money in the typical 9-5.

In March, the stock market went crazy. A few friends knew I liked to invest and wanted to get started so they reached out to me. After a few years hiatus of mostly holding stocks with a few trades here and there I got back into it. I texted quite a bit with friends about what we were buying and selling. I created spreadsheets with target entry points which we never got back down to and started following a lot of traders on Twitter. Looking back, financially it was better to spend my time investing and not blogging. I ended up beating the market! It was a welcome distraction and you can read all about my 2020 stocks investment performance. With my enthusiasm for stocks renewed I’m excited to finally write some investing content here in year 3.

What I Learned In My Second Year of Blogging

In year two I learned more about how to blog. As always, there were things that went well, and other things I need to improve upon next year. Even still, I continued to make a lot of improvements based on what I learned in my first year of blogging. I’m excited to really begin to take my blog to the next level in year three.

Things That Went Well On The Blog

SEO Basics

I’m still far from a pro at SEO but I’ve improved from where I started two years ago. I have Yoast installed now which has helped improve the ease of readability. I do a little keyword research using the Moz keyword explorer and try to incorporate a keyword or two but mainly still write what I want.

I also was able to build a few backlinks this year. While I didn’t keep track, there were two notable ones. Thanks to A Dime Saved one of my saving money tips was included in 13 Ways to Make the Most of Black Friday This Year on MSN. I was also featured as in the Know Your Blogger Series on Personal Finance Blogs.

Ranking for Keywords

At the end of 2019 my post on Why Attend a Women’s conference? started getting some traction in Google and I was super excited. Same with some of my wedding related content like How to Plan a Bridal Shower on a Budget Almost all of that traffic went away starting in March. One step forward, a few steps back. Luckily while this traffic went away, other posts began to improve in ranking. Overall, search drove a lot more visits in year 2 than year 1 and I have no doubt this trajectory will continue in year 3.

Pinterest

In 2019 I tried a bunch of pins and really never got any traction. I’m not very creative and pins take so much more time than writing a tweet I was ready to give up on Pinterest. But in 2020, some of my pins actually started driving some traffic to my site! My most popular pin is for Smart Money Moves in Your 20s. It’s only a few a day, but enough to motivate me to really learn about Pinterest this coming year.

Move to SiteGround

After a lot of technical difficulties with Bluehost and my site going down for days at a time multiple times I finally switched hosting providers. I am now with SiteGround and have had a much better experience. It’s more expensive, but you also get what you pay for.

Partnership and Sponsorship Requests

At this time, I am still not monetizing my blog, but I have received a few requests for paid sponsorships. Even though I am currently turning these down, it’s exciting to get the requests. Once the blog hits a certain traffic level I will consider partnerships and sponsorship requests.

THE THINGS THAT WENT WRONG

Wrong Google Analytics in 2019

My Google Analytics never matched my WordPress metrics in 2019 but I thought this was common and didn’t think much of it. Well, in Jan, turns out I had Google Analytics installed twice somehow and it was double counting all of my visits! So, I thought my blog didn’t do great in 2019 to start and turns out I did even worse. LOL! Luckily it was fixed early in Jan so 2020 is right; however, my 2020 blog goals were based on faulty data. When I found this out I was still determined to hit my initial blog viewership goals. When the pandemic started though I decided to put these goals aside.

Still Not Achieving My Target Blog Viewership Numbers

I could have achieved my viewership goals but decided to put less effort into the blog. The reality is, blogging is a lot of work. If you put in the work upfront it can become passive over time but you have to put in the effort to get there. Many blogs that have much better numbers than me post one to three times A WEEK! In 2 years of blogging I have a total of 64 posts. The people who post 3 times a week end up getting to this same amount of content in their first 5 to 6 months. Like many things, your results are based on the amount of effort you put into something. Had I put more effort into this personal finance blog over the past year I likely would have hit or exceeded my target blog viewership numbers.

KEEPING UP WITH THE BULLS BLOG BY THE NUMBERS

In my second year of blogging about personal finance, I wrote 24 blog posts. This exceeded my goal but is also less than the 40 posts I wrote in 2019. I also went back and improved content I wrote in 2019. Some of the initial content was pretty terrible and I still need to rewrite a few of the initial posts. For social platforms, I am mainly on Twitter and have 1,485 followers, over double the followers I had at the end of last year.

Keeping Up With The Bulls Personal Finance Blog Google Analytics - Page Views, Avg Time on Page, Bounce Rate, % Exit

In 2020 I had 17,217 page views, compared to 14,130 page views in 2019. I also had almost double the amount of visitors. Since some of the page views were double counted last year due to the plugin mishap, it’s more likely I had 8,881 page views in 2019 as that’s what is listed as unique page views.

Keeping Up With The Bulls Most Popular Posts in 2020

  1. 5 Little Known Health Insurance Benefits
  2. Fast Easy Recipes With Few Ingredients
  3. Why You Should Enroll in a 529 Plan for Your MBA
  4. Best Trader Joe’s Dinner Ideas
  5. 10 Pieces of Career Advice for Young Professionals

The most exciting thing for me on the blog this year was that more traffic came from posts actually about personal finance and helping people make more money! Four of the top five posts last year were all about food, this year it’s down to two. I’m glad people are finding ways to save money on food helpful and finding new recipes but that really isn’t the focus of my blog. I really started this blog to help people make more money. Even though a few food posts generated a lot of traffic last year, I saw a lot more traffic overall come through for personal finance and career related content.

Keeping Up With The Bulls Search Performance

Keeping Up With The Bulls Google Console Analytics- total number of clicks and total number of impressions

Keeping Up With The Bulls showed up 212K times in Google search, over 4X more than 2019! Of these, 5.57K clicked through to the blog, over 8X more than 2019! Overall, I have a lot more search optimization to do but I am pleased at this year over year progress. Some of the content I think is very important like learning about RSUs and the importance of sponsorship at work just isn’t searched much. RSUs in your compensation package and having at least one sponsor can immensely impact how much money you make at your job. Even though this content doesn’t do well in search I will continue to write it. If it helps even just one person it’s worth it.

Keeping Up With The Bulls Highest Google Search Referrals Posts

  1. 5 Little Known Health Insurance Benefits
  2. Why You Should Enroll in a 529 Plan for Your MBA
  3. How to Ask For a Job Referral
  4. Why You Should Attend a Women’s Conference
  5. 10 Pieces of Career Advice for Young Professionals

Originally my 2020 goal was to get more traffic from the posts that drove the most search traffic in 2019. The top search referral post in 2019 was Easy Trader Joe’s Dinner Ideas. Since my main focus to drive more traffic to personal finance and career related content I ended up focusing on other posts instead. I am happy about the progress I made here over the last year.

Keeping Up With The Bulls Year 2 Blog Goals Results

  1. Consistently hit 75 + views / day. I did not hit this, but this goal was also based on faulty numbers. In Nov and Dec I consistently hit above 50 views per day though with almost no social promotion so I’m pretty excited about this.
  2. Hit 5,000 views at least one month. The highest amount of views I got in 2020 was 2,632 back in May (excluding January). I am going to keep this goal for 2021.
  3. Reach 500 views / month from organic search. Achieved! Not only did I hit this, but I hit this goal the past 5 months and even got to over 1,000 views per month from organic search in Nov and Dec.
  4. Write 20 more blog posts. Achieved! I ended up writing 24.
  5. Continue to refresh old content. Achieved! I still have a few posts I need to refresh but overall I made a lot of progress here. I will continue this in 2021.
  6. Continue to learn more about SEO and implement what I’ve learned. Achieved! Still much more to do here, but I am happy with the progress I made last year.
  7. Reach 1,000 Twitter followers. Achieved! I am now at almost 1,500 Twitter followers.

Keeping Up With The Bulls Year 3 Goals

  1. Consistently hit 100 + views / day
  2. Hit 5,000 views at least one month
  3. Reach 1,500 views / month from organic search
  4. Write 20 more blog posts
  5. Write more investing content

That’s a wrap on the year 2 of Keeping Up With The Bulls! For anyone that started their blog after me I hope this was helpful and that you can learn from my mistakes. Thank you to everyone who has read my blog and engaged with me the past year. If there is any content you’d like to see more of please don’t hesitate to reach out!

Categories // State Of The Blog

How My Stock Investments Performed in 2020

01.02.2021 by admin // Leave a Comment

2020 stock portfolio performance

Up until now, I haven’t share anything on my blog about my personal investments. On occasion I tweet I own a stock in excitement. With the shutdowns, this ended up being my main hobby in 2020 so I decided, why not do a recap of how my stock investments performed this year.

Most of my top positions were actually purchased in previous years. I’ve been investing in the stock market for over 10 years, saving a large percentage of my salary, and focused on growing my career for the last decade. As a result, my portfolio was incredibly painful to look at in March. I was also able to enter new positions with cash I earned throughout the year. Below is my strategy for how I decide to invest, how each of my stock investment accounts performed, some of the new stocks I bought this past year, some of the stocks I trimmed / sold and lessons learned.

**Nothing on this blog is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a stock. This information is a recap of my own investment performance in 2020 only.**

How I decide What Stocks To Invest In

Investment Strategy

If you’re looking for a formula on what to invest in, you’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t look at technicals unless someone tweets it. Sometimes I’ll browse their P&L or 10K but not often. I try to avoid trading during their earnings weeks but don’t do any trades on earnings. I’ll skim articles about a companies earnings call and the key points from the CEO or CFO. Mostly though, I invest in companies I believe in and companies I personally use. I bought $PTON, $PINS, $ZM, $WORK and $REAL in 2019 because I am a consumer of all of those products. I did not think at the time that many of these would be strong work from home stock plays should there ever be a pandemic.

Investing in Technology Companies

Now, what about investing in tech companies? Surely I don’t use all of these products? That’s correct, but my career is in tech. As a result, I am familiar enough with many of these companies and technology trends. I’ve worked in tech for the past 10 years and in cloud computing for the past 5 years. I also have been working remotely for several years and know what software I’ve used to stay connected. Not only can you make a good salary working in the technology sector, but it also helps you with investing.

Investing in International Companies

My strategy for investing in international companies is pretty straightforward. If I like a company in the US or believe in a trend (ex more shopping moving toward e-commerce) I’ll look for what companies are part of that trend in other countries. This past year this strategy has primarily focused on buying e-commerce sites that operate in other countries.

Investing In Companies Someone Else Recommends

Sometimes I’ll get a text or see a tweet about a company not on my radar. Back in mid- late March I would write it down and research it on the weekend. Clearly, I missed a lot of gains by waiting to research during that weekend or the following. Now, sometimes I’ll buy a stock without any due diligence. Yes, it’s risky but I buy very, very little so the downside is minimal.

On the trading platform I use I’m able to then click the stock ticker and see all of the analysis they’ve done on that company as well as recent news, dividends, earnings and share profile. It makes it easier to track the companies on my watch list in one place and have easy access to key information.

Investments Performance by Portfolio

I have a total of 4 investment accounts: a taxable account, a Roth IRA account, a 401(k) account through my employer and an account for my vested RSUs through my employer. My taxable and Roth I have an advisor for and we have a strategy for those two accounts combined. Most of my individual stock tickers I buy without consultation and then retroactively ask for their thoughts when we check in. Because I buy individual positions in my taxable, my advisor tends to be more conservative in my Roth to balance that out. To date, my advisors have made all the investing recommendations for my Roth which I approve. I also have several other accounts including an emergency fund in a “high yield” savings account.

  • Taxable Investment Account: 41% unrealized gain
  • Roth IRA: 10% unrealized gain
  • 401(k): 18% unrealized gain
  • Vested RSUs: as I don’t disclose my employer I will leave this only as unrealized gains were over 42%

In comparison, the Dow had a 7.3% gain, the S&P 500 a gain of 16.3%, the Nasdaq a gain of 43.6% and the Russell 2000 a gain of 18.4% in 2020. Overall, I am thrilled with how my investments did. I had quite a bit invested in Feb / March and considering how bleak my portfolio looked in March I am thrilled with this outcome. When I did my quarterly 401k check I changed some of the allocations which resulted in a better 2020 performance. Yes, if I just invested everything in ARKK my gains would have likely been higher. However, what’s the fun in that?

New Individual Stock Positions Started

Being at home 24/7 I all of a sudden had a ton of free time this past year I normally do not have. I was convinced we were in a dead cat bounce in March / April which really hampered my gains. Luckily I had a few friends that got into investing and so we were investing together during this time. I bought way too many new positions to list so here are my top 5 stock buys and my 5 worst stock buys. I never buy a position all at once which is why some of the buys are up significantly more than the whole position.

Top 5 New Stock Positions in 2020

  • $NIO – I started buying NIO in July at the recommendation of a friend. I am up over 165% but some of the buys are up over 300%.
  • $FVRR – I started buying Fivrr in May as it was a gig work company I was familiar with from blogging. I wasn’t sure if Fivrr or Upwork was better having never used either so I bought both. I am up over 100% with some buys up almost 250%.
  • $UPWK – I started buying Upwork in May. I assumed I am up over 170% with some buys up almost 200%.
  • $DOCU – Docusign was one of the few stocks I actually bought on March 16th. I knew business had to keep going and contracts would need to be signed digitally. I’ve used Docusign before so I was familiar with it personally and have continued to buy as I learn more about the capabilities and direction of the company. I am up over 100% with my initial buy up over 200%.
  • $JWN – Nordstrom is probably a surprise to most, including myself. I’ve held, and sold, Nordstrom stock in years past. I shop there albeit not often. But, I started learning about DevOps by reading this Nordstrom DevOps Case Study so I knew they had the culture to succeed digitally. The stock looked oversold to me so I started buying shares in August. I figured at that point they weren’t going bankrupt in the near term. The stock continued to go way down before it started rebounding and I sold a little to realize the losses. My full position is now up about 115%, with the top buy up over 160%. Both of these gains would be higher had I not trimmed some of my position at a loss.

Top 5 Worst New Stock Positions in 2020

At times, I have bought the meme stocks in 2020. I see a stock rocket up for no apparent reason and I want some of the action! I was caught bag holding pump and dump stocks. Another mistake was not buying stocks at their at the time ATHs back in the Spring. I thought it was crazy how much a few stocks ran up and waited for them to dip. The dips never came and they kept hitting new ATHs. I had to buy these high conviction stocks at a much higher cost basis, some of which are still at break even or at an unrealized loss in my portfolio.

  • $NERV – I decided to start buying biotech this year. I noticed Minerva Neuroscience came out with bad news and the stock dropped significantly one day and so I bought a few shares! Continued buying shares at other times. I was down for a while, then up and recent bad news now has this position at a -42% unrealized loss. This is currently the worst performer of my portfolio.
  • $INO – I also thought it’d be fun to speculate on vaccines this year! I bought Inovio Pharma and actually sold the full position at a gain of over 50%. On a drop I bought back in and bought more as it dipped. It is now the second worst performing position of my portfolio; however, if you count the previous buying and selling I’m at about break even.
  • $DGLY – I bought Digital Ally during the unrest in the summer and I continued buying bits. I have now fully exited this position and overall probably took a 50% loss.
  • $MARK – I bought Remark during the reopening back in the Springtime. I thought stores would need their equipment to reopen. At one point I may have been up 40% and at the low down 50-60%. I have started trimming this position and expect to take a 10-20% loss all in when I am fully out. There is still a chance the loss will be greater.
  • $TTD – The Trade Desk is a stock on many best performing stocks of 2020 lists. It isn’t really fair to include $TTD on the same list as the stocks. I’m including it here though as I learned an important lesson. I got so many texts asking if I bought $TTD throughout the year from friends that owned this stock. It was referred to at least once a day on FinTwit all year. $TTD always looked too expensive all year to me so I held off until finally starting a position in Dec at $937. It is currently sitting as an unrealized loss in my portfolio. At times, a multi-bagger to some is an unrealized loss for others. When someone says they own a stock don’t automatically assume they made a ton of money on it.

Stock Positions Sold or Trimmed

Stock Selling And Trimming Mistakes

Below are my top 3 biggest stock selling mistakes this year. I think it’s important to share some of your mistakes whenever you are sharing some of your successes for context. I didn’t panic sell anything in mid to late March, but I did start selling and trimming in April because I was so convinced the market would crash again.

It’s easy to look at these stocks now and ask why I ever would have sold but at the time my thought was wow, I am finally breaking even again after ~6 months! I had cash available so I did not need to sell any of these to buy other stocks I wanted. All of these I added to my positions over a period of time when it dipped.

  • $PTON – I bought Peloton in 2019 at starting at $29 and down to $21. Peloton dipped to $17.70 at the lowest in March. I sold close to 40% of my position starting in April at $31-45. I bought back a few shares starting at $85.
  • $ZM – I bought Zoom in 2019 at starting at $89 and down to $64. Zoom dipped to ~$107 in March. I sold over half of my position at $111 – 202. I bought a few shares back at $345.
  • $SQ – I bought Square starting in 2017 starting at $38. Square dipped to ~$38 in March. Holding for several years only to break even!! I started selling most of my position at $49-63. I bought a few shares again starting at $143 so I would at least have some position.

These are all stocks I wanted for the long term, yet I panicked at how quickly the rebounded and started selling. There are other selling mistakes such as when I sold FedEx at a loss and it basically doubled within the following two weeks. I also sold my very small SHOP position at $600 and then rebought and increased my position starting at $900. It’s hard to time the market, but with the market so volatile this past year it’s really easy to look back and wish you acted 1 week sooner or 1 week later.

Stock Selling And Trimming Successes

The top two successful selling stories I have are $FUBO and $WORK. I bought $FUBO at $29 and sold at $49. $FUBO was a stock I saw on Twitter and thought, why not. Right now I can call this stock sale a win; however, it is still a possibility I miss out on future gains here if I decide not to get back in and the stock rises above $49.

I held onto $WORK throughout it all. What a rollercoaster ride that was. At times even with my DCA I was 30% down. I bought Slack starting at the IPO at $39 per share and the lowest cost basis I got was $21. It’s easy to think you’ll buy more as a stock dips but it’s hard to see a position down almost 50% from when you started buying and continue to buy more. It was really hard to hold onto this stock in general, let alone buy more. Everyone who also held this with me sold but I stayed steady. When the $CRM acquisition was announced it finally paid off and my position shot up to over 40% gains.

Investment Lessons Learned

Care More About Taxes Throughout The Year

Short term gains are taxed significantly higher than long term gains because they are taxed as income. Usually I only sell stocks I’ve held for longer than a year so I’ve never had to think much about taxes. I had a “worry about taxes later” as I was selling stocks I thought would burst for short term gains.

Come Nov I realized how not only did these stocks rise significantly after I sold, even if the stock stayed the same price it may have made sense to hold for a little longer for tax reasons. One stock I even accidentally sold 2 days before I held it a year so I now have to pay short term gains instead of long term gains. I need to really give some thought to my tax strategy in 2021.

Do Not Benchmark

One thing I learned trading stocks in 2020 is to not benchmark. If you’re going to make data driven decisions learn about the technicals, read the 10K, listen to the earnings report. Do not make decisions based on what you bought a stock for or a recent low and compare that to the existing stock price. For example I bought Peloton in the $20s. It then dropped from almost $30 down to $18! Then, quickly rebounded to $30! In my head I was like phew, it’s now doubled from the low and I am a little over break even on my highest cost basis. And I began selling quite a bit because I thought the whole market was going to crash again. We all now know now how bad that decision was.

I also made a spreadsheet of all of the stocks I wanted to buy around March 20th. But, I put in the spreadsheet what the low was in March for each stock ticker. And then, put my target at or below that price. Obviously we did not hit those lows again and I had to buy the stocks I wanted at way higher prices. I kept waiting and those lows never came!

Its OK to Buy at All Time Highs

I first found out about $LVGO from a fun stock picking contest Dividend Farmer ran on Twitter back in May. $LVGO was up an insane amount every time a contest update was posted. I finally threw in the towel and bought a few shares even though it was at a ATH. And then the next day it hit another ATH and the next day another ATH! You get the trend. So, I started buying it in bits after learning more about the company during the weekend and every new buy was pretty much a new ATH for the stock. Even though I always felt unease buying at an all time high it kept rising and those initial buys were still at great prices.

Don’t Sell Your Winners

Why, why, why did I sell so much of my Peloton, Zoom, and Square shares? Some of those shares would now be up ~500% from when I sold!!! I believed in these companies way before there was even a pandemic and the pandemic accelerated their sales. I continued to believe in them and buy more shares while they dipped 20%+ in 2019 while there were a ton of naysayers out there. Flawed logic convinced me these stocks would struggle in the short term, the market was going to crash again and I could sell and get back in at a cheaper price. Then, I didn’t want to buy back because I had sold at a lower price. Expensive mistakes.

Don’t Time The Market

This is advice given everywhere, but I tried to time the market with some of my winners and failed miserably. It’s been a good reminder to keep my day job and not try to become a day trader. Moving forward I will not sell positions I really believe in with the intent to get back in when they drop.

And that is a wrap on my investments returns in 2020. I’d love to hear how you did and what your favorite tickers are for 2021 and beyond!

Categories // Invest Tags // Investing

Simple Ways to Save Money During the Holidays in 2020

12.07.2020 by admin // 1 Comment

simple ways to save money during the holidays, simple ways to save money for Christmas

Whether we like it or not, 2020 has made it easier to save money this holiday season. Many of us live in areas with strongly suggested stay at home orders. The money we usually spend traveling and hosting friends and family isn’t happening this year. Company holiday parties, and the spend on outfits, are also cancelled. Below are simple ways to save money during the holidays in 2020 and years to come.

Keep a List of Everything You Need to Buy And Watch For Sales

Start off the holiday season by creating a list of everything you need or want to buy. This includes gifts for people, items you need to celebrate the holidays around your house and things you and your family need in general. For gifts, don’t forget about teachers, doormen and other people that have helped you throughout the year. There are a ton of great deals around the holidays not just for gifts but also for household items and even things you use daily like hair and skin products. Be smart with your spending and take advantage of better prices for things you need.

If money is tight, set a limit for how much you can spend and don’t go over that amount. If you can afford to spend a little extra don’t hold yourself to a strict limit. That way, if you see something that’s normally $100 for $50 that you won’t need until the Spring you can buy it now instead of spending $100 later. Sticking to your list will help limit unnecessary purchases and help you save money.

Buy Gift Card Deals

During Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the weeks leading up to Christmas many places both large and small offer discounts on gift cards. A local restaurant group offers additional $25 gift cards for every $100 you buy. In 2019 and 2020 Target offered 10% off gift cards one weekend up to $400 in 2019 and $500 in 2020.

This is a great way to save on gifts as well your normal purchases. If you visit these restaurants and stores throughout the year buy the gift cards and save money throughout the year as you redeem them. If this pushes you a little over your budget but you have the cash to do so don’t feel guilty about spending money. You’re helping give cash to local businesses that need it most and the money you spend now is ultimately saving you money next year.

Celebrate the Holidays Via Zoom

Our options for how to celebrate the holidays in 2020 are definitely not our top choice but it does present an opportunity to save money. Take advantage of the stay at home orders / recommendations and save money on travel and food by celebrating via Zoom. When this is all over we’re all going to want to see family, travel, attend events etc so you can save money now to celebrate extra later, add to your emergency fund or pay down bills.

Celebrate The Holidays on Another Day

Traveling during holidays, especially when it involves a plane, is expensive. Sure, we’d all prefer to celebrate the holiday on the actual day but can you celebrate a few days or a week later? Being flexible with the family gathering can save you hundreds of dollars on flights. It also saves you time waiting in airport security lines and traffic.

In 2020 especially we are missing spending the holidays with our families. There is no reason we can’t celebrate the holidays later in the spring or summer because we weren’t able to celebrate now.

Buy Decorations Post Holiday Or During a Sale

The best time to buy holiday decorations is always immediately after the holiday has passed. You can score great deals on Thanksgiving decorations and Christmas decorations using these tips.

Savings aren’t just limited to household Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hanukkah decorations either. You can also save money on holiday cards immediately after the holiday and gift wrapping. If someone gives you a gift in a gift bag, save it and reuse it.

Have Someone Else Host the Holiday

Hosting a holiday gathering is expensive. It costs an average of $31 / person to host Thanksgiving. To drive down costs, limit the number of people you invite or take people up on their offer when they ask what they can bring. Save more money hosting Thanksgiving by taking these small steps.

Save Money Attending Holiday Parties

Getting invited to a holiday party sounds like a free meal. It can be a cheap night out! But, be careful of the other expenses. Expenses can add up and it may make sense to skip some of the holiday parties you’re invited to.

When you’re attending a company holiday party what are you wearing? Are you doing your own hair and makeup? How are you getting to and from the party? Are you meeting up with anyone else before or after? If you’re attending the party, wearing clothes you already own and driving yourself it will be pretty cheap to attend. As you add new clothes, Ubers, etc the costs will add up pretty quickly.

When you’re attending a family or friends holiday party some of the same expenses can creep in. New clothes, hair, makeup, Ubers, etc. In addition, gifts for the host. If you’re invited to a lot of holiday parties around the same time you can plan and take advantage of buying in bulk. For example, making a big batch of Christmas cookies and bringing a platter of cookies to each party. Some liquor stores have discounts if you buy 6 or more bottles of wine at a time.

If you notice no matter what you can’t cut your spending down enough, look for ways to earn more money fast through side hustles. What are simple ways you’re saving money during the holidays?

Categories // Smart Spending Tags // Holidays

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Recent Posts

  • Personal Finance Blogging Year 2 Stats January 10, 2021
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