Knowing how to budget is incredibly important. Creating a realistic budget and sticking with it can save us from making major financial mistakes, including living beyond our means and incurring credit card debt. I wish budgeting was taught at school, but as far as I know it isn’t, and so it’s up to us parents to teach our kids how to budget. Fortunately, life creates many opportunities for us to do so.

This is what we do with our own kids to help them learn the concept of budgeting:
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Growing up, I always went to the Black Friday sales with my mother. She would scope out the flyers, make lengthy lists and even scope out store layouts to make sure that she could get everything she wanted. My mom would team up with friends to make sure that someone in their group was at each of the most important stores when doors opened. She’d drop me and my sisters off in different parts of the mall with a cell phone and instructions to report back. It was an experience that I will likely never forget.

And yet, when the morning after Thanksgiving rolls around, I’m not going to leave my house.
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Chances are, you are probably trying to get your Christmas list together for the year. The last thing you are considering is what you will do for Christmas next year. But, if you want to reduce the financial stresses that can come with the holidays, planning now is a good way to get ready for next year. Here are some things to do this year as you get ready for the holidays, and consider preparing for next year:
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Your average infant will wear over 7,000 diapers before toilet trained. That’s a lot of money you are essentially throwing away. If your goal is to save money on diapers, you really should consider using cloth diapers that you wash yourself. If, however, you just can’t imagine doing so, there are other money saving tips I can offer. But first things first, let’s start by looking at cloth.
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If your yard is anything like mine, it’s now littered with the crispy evidence of winter’s approach. While I love this time of year, like most homeowners I dread autumn’s most daunting chore: leaf removal.

Here’s some tips to keep make your leaf lifting load a little lighter:

1. Keep mowing! If you haven’t yet hit a period of frequent frosts, you’ll want to continue to mow into mid fall. Don’t double your work by raking just yet. If you have a power mower, you can mulch the leaves with you grass clippings. When the grass stops growing, then you can turn your attention to the fallen foliage.
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Every year, when Thanksgiving rolls around, I start thinking about the big spread my grandmother always put on. I want to be able to do something similar, but every time I sit down and start planning, I’m reminded that the budget she set for Thanksgiving was always more than I budget these days. So what should I do? The classic method most families use — the potluck — helps, but it wasn’t my grandmother’s favorite, especially since many family members drove over an hour on the day of Thanksgiving. Here are 5 ways I came up with:
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