الخميس، 29 نوفمبر 2018
Biggest Rally in Eight Months: Dow Jumps 600 Points After Fed Hints at Fewer Interest Rate Hikes
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Biggest Rally in Eight Months: Dow Jumps 600 Points After Fed Hints at Fewer Interest Rate Hikes
Source CBNNews.com https://ift.tt/2G0xCMH
The “After Holiday” Strategy
After each holiday season, it’s pretty easy for me to write an article about how much you can save by taking advantage of huge markdowns on items related to that holiday. After a holiday passes, most department stores and grocery stores mark down items related to that holiday to get rid of that inventory, and a smart consumer can take advantage of that.
Of course, I can write more or less the same article after each holiday because the overall strategy is the same. The only thing that changes are the items you’re seeking and what you might do with them.
So, rather than write one of those typical post-holiday articles where I highlight the things you can do in the aftermath of that specific holiday, I’m instead writing a general article that focuses on one overall strategy: when a holiday passes, take advantage of the markdowns on specific holiday-related food and merchandise and save it for next year or utilize it over the coming months.
It’s an incredibly effective strategy. If you hit the store in the two or three days right after a holiday and look specifically for seasonal items, you’ll often find them on steep discount, and bargain hunters will clear the aisles like locusts at that point, buying them by the cartload. Of course, that’s probably not the wisest move for a truly cost-conscious person who doesn’t want to waste money, but it’s often worthwhile to buy a few items on discount to use out of season or to stow away for the next year.
To illustrate this, I’m going to go through some of the most common strategies I’ve used over the years to do just this. There are several holidays throughout the year where you can save quite a bit of money by going shopping a few days after the holiday, and here’s how to really take advantage of each one.
Valentine’s Day
This romantic holiday typically finds two items on deep discount afterwards, both of which can be snagged for very different reasons.
Greeting cards can be bought and put aside for a future year if you’re the type that exchanges cards on Valentines Day. Since the sentiment remains the same, it’s not too hard to buy a card that’s 50% to 75% off on February 17th or so and put it aside until next February 14th.
In fact, this is a good strategy to help you establish a pattern of having a “card box,” something I picked up from my great grandmother. She had a small box of greeting cards for a wide variety of purchases and would stock it with new ones when they were on sale. Then, whenever she needed one, she’d just turn to that box and there would always be one available for her purposes.
Chocolates aren’t going to last for a year, but they can often be used throughout the year for other purposes. A bag of Hershey’s Kisses or Dove Promises or even bars of chocolate can be used for all kinds of baking purposes, and chocolates, of course, can be a nice occasional treat.
Easter
For many families, Easter is a celebration of coloring eggs, hiding them, searching for them, and enjoying a bit of candy. Naturally, that means some items are carried heavily in stores just before Easter and go on deep, deep discount right after Easter. Two such items really stand out from the pack.
Candy, particularly seasonally-targeted candy like cream eggs and marshmallow candies, goes on deep discount right after Easter as the items need to be cleared out. Most of these candies can be bought and easily stowed away until next Easter, as they last for a long time in a cool, dark place. Stow them away with some Easter baskets until the next year.
Easter egg dye kits are also incredibly cheap right after Easter, as much as 90% off in the few days right after Easter before they disappear from shelves. Again, buy the kits right after Easter and put them aside until the following Easter. You’ll spend pennies instead of dollars, and the dye tablets in the kits will work just fine.
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day
This one’s simple. There’s really only one thing that goes on sale after these two days.
Greeting cards are the most common item sold to celebrate these days, and naturally you can take advantage of this. The absolute best time to buy a Mother’s Day card is two or three days after Mother’s Day. The absolute best time to buy a Father’s Day card is two or three days after Father’s Day. You’ll often find those cards on deep discount for a few days right after the holiday, and then they’re gone. Take those freshly bought cards and hold onto them until next year. The sentiment remains, but the price is far less.
Back to School
While this isn’t strictly a holiday per se, many stores effectively treat it as such, putting out a bunch of items related to the back to school season in August and then aiming to clear it off of their shelves in early September.
Office supplies are the big winner here, as most office supplies can be found on sale during September. I often pick up pens, composition books, and index cards during the winding down of back to school sales. My wife tends to buy piles of composition books for her classroom, along with other school supplies.
Backpacks are also often on sale in mid-September, as stores often accumulate a big stock of them in August and early September and then need to get rid of that stock for the rest of the year. While you usually can’t find a great backpack, it’s not too hard to find a sub-$10 backpack for specific purposes, like having a bag for the car in the winter that contains some spare clothes and a first aid kit, or having a bag for your gym gear.
Shoes are often on sale at the end of the back to school period, even adult pairs. Many stores often put all of their shoes on sale during that time, so it’s an opportunity to buy a pair for yourself and to buy a pair in a larger size for your children as they grow into them.
Halloween
Halloween offers a wide variety of items that wind up on deep discount in early November as they’re being pulled off the shelves to make way for Thanksgiving and Christmas goodies.
Costume makeup can be had for pennies on the dollar at this time of the year, so if you often use costume makeup for your own costume or for your children, this is a great opportunity to pick up a variety of colors and types at a very cheap price. My daughter has used Halloween makeup bought in this way in the past for her costume the past two years, and we used it for a sports themed dress-up day as well.
Costumes are often on discount, too, so if you have a young child who will be going out for beggar’s night next year or if you want to buy costume elements for yourself for next year’s Halloween, this is a great chance to do that on discount. Just be sure to put it in a place where you’ll easily find it next year.
Candy, particularly large bags of many small pieces of candy, is super cheap right after Halloween, though this often vanishes by two or three days after Halloween as it’s very popular with bargain hunters. You can always buy it to stow away for next year’s beggar’s night, or you can simply enjoy it yourself by tossing a piece or two into your lunches that you take to work or as a quick snack around the house.
Pumpkins are often harvested by the ton during October so that they can be used as jack-o-lanterns, but after October passes, there’s usually still a supply but almost no demand, so the prices drop through the floor. They do make a good decoration (uncarved) for the harvest season, plus if you can find inexpensive pumpkins that are good for cooking, you can make some amazing pumpkin-flavored dishes for a very low price.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a very food-centric holiday, with particular food items heavily associated with the celebration. These items, unsurprisingly, find themselves on heavy discount shortly after Thanksgiving weekend is over (and sometimes even before the weekend is over). This is a great time to stock up on some specific foodstuffs, particularly if you have space in the cupboard or freezer.
Turkeys are typically on discount after Thanksgiving, but they’re also often on discount before Thanksgiving as well, as many stores use turkeys as loss leaders to get people into the store before Thanksgiving, so while you can get cheap turkeys after Thanksgiving, they’re sometimes even cheaper beforehand.
Buying a few turkeys to freeze or to use for other recipes can be a wise idea. Simply cooking a turkey, cutting up the meat, and saving it for things like turkey tetrazzini or turkey pot pie can make for some very inexpensive meals later in the winter. You can also use the carcass to make turkey stock, which makes almost every soup and many casseroles more flavorful; just put a turkey carcass into a slow cooker, add some peppercorn and vegetable scraps, fill it with water so that all of the turkey carcass is covered, and cook it all day or all night. Strain it and save the liquid. The liquid is turkey stock, and it’s amazing.
Cranberry sauce is often found on extreme discount a few days after Thanksgiving. It can be served with lots of meals to add a tart and sweet element and it can be used as an ingredient in many different dishes. There are tons and tons of recipes out there that use leftover cranberry sauce as an ingredient, particularly desserts. It’s a great way to come up with some very tasty desserts to bring to December holiday potlucks, for example.
Pie filling, particularly pumpkin pie filling, is usually on deep discount right after Thanksgiving. While it’s useful for making pies, of course, there are a lot of uses for pie filling, from things like pumpkin pie cookies to making pumpkin flavored smoothies (yep, just puree the filling with some milk and whatever else you’d like to add).
Christmas
The days immediately after Christmas are a great time to stock up on winter holiday supplies, even if you celebrate Hanukkah or other holidays near the end of the calendar year.
Wrapping paper and ribbons are almost always on discount, and while many of the paper patterns are directly tied to Christmas, others are very secular (depicting winter patterns or simple colors). You can often find enormous rolls of plain paper on deep discount and it’s easy to just put those rolls away with the holiday decorations so that they’re ready to go when you pull out your holiday decorations next November or December.
Scotch tape is often on discount because it’s a hot item in the days leading up to Christmas and other winter gift-giving events. Many stores sell three packs at a very steep discount, often far less than buying a single roll at other times of the year. Again, buy a three pack of tape and toss two of the rolls in with your holiday decorations so they’re ready to go next winter.
Holiday lights tend to also be on steep discount during the week after Christmas and often into the first week of the new year. Stores simply want to purge them off their shelves, so if you’ve noticed that your lights aren’t twinkling any more or you have some failed strands, pick them up just after the holidays are over and stow them away for next year.
Gift sets are prepackaged sets of items meant to be given as gifts as a complete package. Often, gift sets are just a bit below regular price for the individual items, so it’s not really a bargain. However, just after the holidays, gift sets go on massive markdown to get them out of the store. You can buy them for your own use or, even better, buy them as gifts for future gift-giving events as long as they’re not obviously marked for Christmas use.
Toys also often go on sale right after the holidays, as many retailers drastically inflate their toy selection for the holidays and then put lots of things on clearance as they reduce their toy inventory. This is a great way to pick up toys and games that your children might enjoy or, even better, buy items to stow away for birthdays throughout the year.
Final Thoughts
The point of this article is simple: right as a holiday passes, think about what items from that holiday might be on sale because the stores need to unload them, and then stock up on those items if it makes sense for you. For us, things like school supplies and tape get bought when the prices are super low right after the associated special occasions.
Remember, you don’t have to use these items immediately. Most food items can be frozen. Other food items are shelf-safe, which means they’ll fit right in your pantry. Non-food items often have uses throughout the year, and those that don’t can be stowed away until next year. Just make sure you put those items in a place where you’ll easily find them. One good way to remind yourself that you have a holiday item stowed away somewhere is to add a calendar reminder for yourself about eleven months from now, reminding yourself of what you stowed away and where. That way, when that time of the year comes around again, you’re reminded of what you have and where you stowed it away.
If you plan it right, you can save a ton of money on holiday-related supplies and even repurpose some of those holiday supplies for other purposes in your life at a very low price.
Good luck!
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Parents Are Spending Twice as Much on Their Adult Kids as Retirement
There are some parents out there who have a hard time letting go of their adult children.
If only they had similar difficulty letting go of their money.
According to a new study by Merrill Lynch and Age Wave, parents in the U.S. spend $500 billion annually on their 18- to 34-year-old adult children. That wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t twice the amount they contribute each year to their retirement accounts ($250 billion).
Though nearly two-thirds of parents say they’ve sacrificed their own financial security for the sake of their children, more than 90 percent also say parenting is the most rewarding aspect of their lives.
“Parenting can be one of the most fulfilling and identity-shaping experiences of a person’s life – and with it comes a lifelong financial commitment,” says Lorna Sabbia, head of retirement and personal wealth solutions for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “Planning ahead for the major financial costs can limit surprises down the road and help parents safeguard their own financial goals.”
Of the 173 million parents in the United States today, just 76 million have children under 18. As a result, 89 percent agree there is “no normal” when it comes to parenting, though 52 percent say the infant and toddler stage is the most rewarding part of parenting. Middle school and high school are considered the most difficult times, thanks largely to increased financial dependence. Perhaps that’s why 73 percent of people now consider finances before becoming a parent – compared to just one-third in the 1980s.
The average cost of raising a child to age 18 is now estimated to be over $230,000. Nine in 10 parents say they’re surprised by how much money they spent after becoming a parent, and nearly two-thirds (63 percent) say they’ve had financial difficulties as a result of parenting.
Yet it appears that getting your kids to age 18 is hardly a financial finish line. Nearly four out of five (79 percent) of parents of early adults say they provide them with some kind of financial support. Roughly 31 percent of adults ages 18 to 34 live at home, which is a greater percentage than those who live with a spouse. And according to a separate survey by NerdWallet, the majority of parents (87 percent) of children 18 and older had their adult children living with them for at least some period of time.
Even if their adult children live independently, today’s parents often contribute to food and grocery bills (60 percent), cell phone service (54 percent), car expenses (47 percent), school (44 percent), vacations (44 percent), rent (36 percent), and student loans (27 percent).
And a survey released Thursday by CreditCards.com found that nine in 10 American parents would help their grown children pay off debt. The average parent is willing to fork over $5,705 to their child for debt repayment, without any expectation of being reimbursed — and nearly $8,000 if they expect to be paid back. (The big exception being gambling debt, for which 57% of parents say they would never foot the bill.)
In addition, according to Merrill Lynch, 59 percent expect to help pay for their children’s weddings, 26 percent expect to contribute to their children’s first homes, and one-third plan to contribute to their grandchildren’s college costs.
“In this new era of delayed financial independence of young people, financial planning is no longer a solo or coupled activity,” says Ken Dychtwald, CEO and founder of Age Wave. “It’s become an ongoing family project with longer and different social, housing, and economic interdependencies than we’ve seen before.”
Unfortunately for parents, this is putting their own retirement plans at risk. Seventy-two percent of parents tell Merrill Lynch they have put their children’s interests ahead of their own need to save for retirement, and 82 percent say they would be willing to make a major financial sacrifice for adult children, including drawing down savings (50 percent) or curtailing their lifestyles (43 percent). One-fourth would even take on debt or pull money from retirement accounts.
As the NerdWallet survey revealed, every little contribution that parents make adds up. When the average parent borrows $21,000 for their child’s tuition, and student loan payoff plans are around 10 years, it’s potentially costing these parents almost $80,000 in missed retirement savings to send their kid to college. And on average, NerdWallet estimates a parent covering a child’s living expenses for five years and borrowing money for college tuition is missing out on $227,000 — almost a quarter of a million dollars — in retirement savings.
A higher cost of living or supporting multiple adult children could drive that number even higher. For instance, if a parent gives an adult child an allowance of $200 a month for five years, that $12,000, invested in a retirement account earning 6 percent interest, would have grown to almost $40,000 by the time the parent retires.
“As parents, we tend to want to do everything we can to help our children succeed,” says Andrea Coombes, NerdWallet’s investing expert. “But sometimes we focus on the present at the expense of the future.”
It doesn’t have to be that way. Voya Financial’s head of customer solutions, James Nichols, suggests that parents should have a clear understanding of financing and their retirement savings goals, be as honest as they can with their financial situation, bring a third party in to look over the details, and then put it all in writing and check on the plan every so often. However, if a financial advisor isn’t in the budget, there are simpler options available.
Insurance: Keeping adult kids on the family insurance plan as long as possible might help them save on health care costs, but Coombes suggests asking children to reimburse you for at least some of those costs, and maybe ramp up the amount they contribute over time. “That’ll help get them ready to pay their own bills down the road, even as it keeps you on track to save for retirement — which is when you’re really going to need that money,” she says.
Student loans: Parents can always ask adult children to contribute to student loan costs, but they can also refinance loans or speed up repayment to reduce interest charges. If parents haven’t taken out loans yet, it’s best to have a child borrow first, since federal student loans tend to have better interest rates and terms than parent PLUS loans.
Living at home: It’s best for everyone if parents ask adult kids to pay some rent and their share of the bills, like utilities. It helps them learn to build a monthly budget, and helps parents get that much closer to retirement. “One way to help out with your adult children’s finances is to let them live at home and thus avoid the major monthly cost of rent,” Coombes says. “But letting them live at home doesn’t mean you have to give them a free ride.”
At the very least, parents should calculate the potential costs of retirement before committing to helping their kids. Both parents and their adult children can plan ahead without sacrificing one’s future for the other’s.
“When emotions and money become intertwined, parents risk making financial decisions that can compromise their – and their children’s – financial futures,” says Lisa Margeson, head of retirement client experience and communications at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “Parents can navigate this difficult balance by setting clear boundaries about their level of support, fostering financial independence in adult children, and reconciling spending on children with long-term savings goals to avoid jeopardizing their own financial security.”
Related Articles:
- Avoiding the Trap of Financially Dependent Children
- Three Reasons New Parents Should Stress About Saving for College
- When and How to Stop Paying Your Kids’ Bills
- Don’t Repeat These Five Mistakes Boomers Made on the Road to Retirement
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