Give the gift of financial freedom this holiday season! Do you have a person in your life you keep recommending Frugalwoods to? Do you continually send them links to personal finance articles that they seem to ignore? Does this same person  bemoan that their money is a mess? Do you wish you could stage a financial intervention? Now you can!! I am here for all of your financial intervention needs with…

Gift Certificates for Private Financial Consultations!

Yes indeed, you can wrap me up and put me under your tree. Wondering what my private financial consultations entail? Read all about them here, sign-up for a consultation yourself here, or read on for the Cliff Notes:

I work one-on-one with clients to demystify personal finance and break money management down into easy-to-follow steps.

I explain where to start with organizing your finances and where to go for the longterm in a holistic, straightforward, anti-jargon, anti-judgment way, which means…

This Gift is Perfect For…

1) Your Adult Children/Grandchildren!

Continue reading Give The Gift of Financial Freedom! at Frugalwoods.

I am not usually a Valentine’s Day type of person. It’s a commercialized, chintzy, kinda made-up holiday. I even once wrote a screed on why it’s dumb: A Frugal Weirdo’s Anti-Valentine’s Day Manifesto.

But let me tell you, this year, I am ON BOARD. Sign me up for ALL the tacky holidays.

Frugalwoods reader Barbara summed it up perfectly:

Mostly, we don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. But with the pandemic, I feel the need to celebrate every milestone just for the sense that time is passing.

Yes, Barbara, preach it! My thoughts exactly. Maybe it’s the yearlong pandemic, maybe it’s the excessive snow, maybe it’s being home with a five-year-old and a three-year-old EVERY SINGLE DAY. Whatever the reason, I’m celebrating everything I can possibly think of/contrive to celebrate.

I still can’t quite get myself to view V-Day as a romantic holiday, but I’m digging the kid angle.

Continue reading Reader Suggestions for a Wallet and COVID-safe Valentine’s Day at Frugalwoods.

Merry Pandemic Holidays!!!! We’re ready to celebrate how much we love our families by…. not seeing them!!! This holiday season will be different, but no less merry and jolly. Primarily I will achieve this by making as many desserts as I’d make if we were hosting 15 people. Since there are four of us x 1 pandemic x no childcare for 9 months, I feel the math is going to work out well.

Also, going to put this up front: some content in this post will not be suitable for kiddos who believe in The Magic. Just in case anyone is reading over your shoulder….

Since this is a year like no other–and one we will hopefully not repeat in our lifetimes–I asked the readers of Frugalwoods to wrap us in festive tidings with tales of how they’re celebrating in 2020. We’ll talk gifts, we’ll talk traditions, we’ll talk food.

Continue reading Merry Pandemic Holidays! How We’re Celebrating, How Readers are Celebrating at Frugalwoods.

Listen, I know this Friday is Black Friday. And I know a lot of people will go shopping and believe they’re saving money. And I don’t deny there are legit deals to be had the day after Thanksgiving. But here’s the thing: is it worth it to jump into the consumer melee in order to save a few bucks? I posit nope.

My Opinions on Black Friday (spoiler: they are not good)

Brought to you in the form of a listicle, which is a list icicle, which means I have iced the consumer desire:

1. First of all, the very best way to save money is to not go shopping. Yep. All the sales in the world won’t save you as much money as… just not shopping.

2. Second of all, do you really need the stuff for sale on Black Friday?

Continue reading 18 Things To Do On Black Friday Instead Of Shopping at Frugalwoods.

There you are, frugaling through the year, with your money on your mind and your mind on your money when, BAM, it’s the holidays and all the cash you saved and scraped is siphoned off into an endless swirl of gift buying, wrapping paper, holiday party hosting, and Christmas tree be-decking.

Ahh well, better luck next year, you think as you start January broke, deflated, and feeling ever-more Grinch-like.

BUT NOT THIS YEAR! The Frugalwoods gang (law enforcement take note: we are not actually a gang) is coming to your rescue today!!! We celebrate the holidays, we give gifts, we party it up, but we don’t lose our frugal cool.

Welcome to my monthly Reader Suggestions feature! Every month I post a question to our Frugalwoods Facebook group and share the best responses here. The questions are topics I’ve received multiple queries on and my hope is that by leveraging the braintrust of Frugalwoods nation, you’ll find helpful advice and insight.

Continue reading Reader Suggestions Of A Frugal Holiday Gift Guide (aka Staying on Budget the Non-Grinchy Way) at Frugalwoods.

September to December = my favorite time of year. I’m a holiday hound. A festivity fox. A Halloween hugger. What can I say? This trifecta:

1. Halloween
2. Thanksgiving
3. Christmas

IS MY JAM. People are sometimes surprised at how robustly I celebrate holidays because celebrating is not inherently frugal or minimalist or simple. It’d be cheaper, easier, and require less stuff if I let October 31st, some Thursday in November (I always forget which), and December 25th roll on by.

But I protest. I say that the point of being frugal–and managing your money well–is to enable you to spend on stuff you care about. And I care about these holidays. As does my husband, as do our daughters. Well, the baby does not care yet, but she will.

Welcome to my monthly Reader Suggestions feature! Every month I post a question to our Frugalwoods Facebook group and share the best responses here.

Continue reading Reader Suggestions for Celebrating Halloween and Thanksgiving On A Budget at Frugalwoods.

My husband and I have had a lot of things over the years: 10.5 years of wedded bliss, two darling children, endless conversations about grocery lists, vacations abroad, tears, exhaustion, and joy. One thing we didn’t have? A frugal wedding.

Yep. You heard it here first: the Frugalwoods did not get married frugally. Mr. FW and I met when we were 18 and 19 during the second semester of our freshman year of college. We got engaged at 23 and married in June 2008 when we were both 24. Writing those ages makes my hands hurt–we we SO YOUNG.

We were so young that I sometimes can’t believe we’ve stayed together because we’re such different people at age 35 than we were at 24. But the key for us is that we’ve changed, evolved, and matured together. At 24, we were not yet the Frugalwoods. While we were thrifty, we weren’t anywhere near as financially woke as we are now.

Continue reading Reader Suggestions For How To Plan A Fantastic Frugal Wedding at Frugalwoods.

I decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving and don’t un-decorate until well into January. In fact, I wrote this on January 9th basking in the warm glow of my Christmas tree. Although less warm than it was earlier in the month because a bunch of bulbs burned out. Probably because I turn it on ALL the time.

I had high hopes for Christmas this year because:

1. I’m not pregnant (hello gin-and-tonics on Christmas Eve);
2. Kidwoods is three years old, which seems old enough to “get” Christmas;
3. We weren’t hosting or traveling!

So I thought: yeah! It’ll be a low-key, cozy, lots of adult beverages snuggled up by the fire type of Christmas week!!

Somehow I forgot that:

1. There was no preschool so we had both kids home all day. Every day. Allllll day.

Continue reading Laugh So You Don’t Cry: What It’s Really Like to Celebrate Christmas With Little Kids at Frugalwoods.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!!! True, true, but it’s also the most stressful time of the year for some. Stressed? Moi? You may be thinking. But indeed, amid all the ho-ho-ho-ing and fa-la-la-ing, there’s an undercurrent of dread related to one of the most contentious aspects of the holidays: GIFT GIVING.

It’s lovely to give and receive and everyone feels festive and jolly nestled in their woolen sweaters, clutching their ‘nog, smiling as Bing croons about snow dreams. However. The holidays can also spell financial catastrophe. Ok perhaps ‘catastrophe’ is a tad hyperbolic, but financial distress certainly is not.

In the past, I’ve heard from many readers who assume there are but two holiday gifting routes:

1. Register as a certified grinch and refuse to give (or receive) a single gift.
2. Max out all of your credit cards and shower everyone you know with presents.

Continue reading Reader Suggestions: Holiday Gifts That’ll Spread The Love But Not Break The Bank at Frugalwoods.

You didn’t think I’d let a holiday sneak by without weighing in, did you?! Impossible! I am a known lover of holidays and above all, the trifecta of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I live all year for these three. I moved to Vermont so that we could have picturesque fall leaves and snowy white Christmases.

I have a giant fir tree in my yard and, the other day, my older daughter looked out at it–covered in snow as it was–and exclaimed, “is that a Kimiss tree, mama?!” I’ve succeeded in parenting.

Since it’s not Kimiss season quite yet (not until this Friday, thank you very much, at which time I will most definitely be putting up our Christmas tree), let’s delve into the scrumptiousness of Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving is in my top three holidays for the following reasons:

1. There’s no gift giving!

Continue reading Reader Suggestions For A Deliciously Frugal Thanksgiving at Frugalwoods.

It’s holiday time, which for many of us means it’s holiday card time, which for many of us means it’s holiday photo-taking time! Who doesn’t relish the thought of matching reindeer sweaters, antlers on dogs, and babies doing everything but smiling at the camera?! Fun, right??? I actually do love taking our annual holiday photo (although I’m pretty sure the rest of my family does not share this sentiment… ) and making our annual holiday postcard to mail to family and friends. Do you know how much I spend on this photo every year? Exactly zero dollars. And today, you are in luck, because I will tell you how.

As you likely already know, based on how frequently I write about the holidays (I’M OBSESSED), my frugal philosophy is not to skip the holidays or nix the greeting cards. Rather, I’m a proponent of frugalizing, simplifying, and otherwise finding hacks for creating warm, loving holidays for a fraction of the cost.

Continue reading How I Take My Own Holiday Family Photos (And Make Them Look Good!) at Frugalwoods.

The glorious Thanksgiving season is upon us and, to all of my US readers, I hope you have a wonderfully festive week. Even if you’re not celebrating T-day this week, keep reading because I’m convinced that Thanksgiving is, in fact, the perfect frugal holiday. I mean, the whole day is centered around a cornerstone of successful frugality: cooking at home! Unlike nearly every other holiday we mark throughout the year, there’s essentially nothing to buy for Thanksgiving except for food. How great, and tasty, is that!

The Food

I mean, we can’t talk about Thanksgiving without discussing the food, am I right? When I hear backlash against this holiday’s meal to the effect that it encourages gluttony and overconsumption, I must heartily disagree! What I think Thanksgiving encourages are: LEFTOVERS! Quite possibly the greatest aspect of Thanksgiving are the massive quantities of leftover foodstuffs.

Leftovers are a linchpin of frugality and smart, efficient cooking in general.

Continue reading No Turkey, No Problem! How We Celebrate Thanksgiving Our Way at Frugalwoods.