6 Incredible Back To School Savings Ideas For Parents

Incredible Back To School Savings Ideas For Parents

Incredible Back To School Savings Ideas For ParentsFor many kids, back to school shopping is way more exciting than school itself. But, for the parents paying for cartloads of new school supplies, back to school shopping is a delicate and anxious balance between staying within budget and appeasing your kids’ desires to acquire the latest and greatest stuff to show off to their classmates. But, there are many ways to find back to school savings to help you stay on track with your budget.

School supplies aren’t exactly cheap, after all: the National Retail Federation’s “Top Trends for 2016 Back-to-School and College Shopping” report published this summer found that parents with K-12 kids in the U.S. were spending an average of $673.57 on clothing, shoes, and school supplies in 2016, which is a $43 increase over the 2015 average figure.

6 Useful Back To School Savings Ideas

If your children are starting school soon and you’re looking for ways to save money on school supplies in the meantime, then don’t miss these useful back to school savings ideas.

Set Firm Limits

Kids want to jump in on all the latest trends, whether it’s Pokémon GO, Kylie Jenner’s new cosmetic line, or even smart watches. But buying a bunch of branded school supplies and cool but unnecessary gadgets (does your 4th grader really need a $90 calculator?) can really put a dent in your back to school budget.

Rather than caving into their pleas for a bunch of Pokémon binders, pencils, and backpacks, set a limit of one or two fun items and buy cheaper, generic school supplies for whatever else is on your shopping list. Back to school shopping should be a fun experience to get the kids pumped up for the new academic year.

But, setting firm budgetary limits and buying only what’s on your shopping list will help you save money by avoiding impulse purchases.

According to RetailMeNot, parents plan to spend an average of $273 on their children’s return to school this fall. That’s $27 more than parents anticipated spending last year.

According to RetailMeNot, parents plan to spend an average of $273 on back to school supplies in 2016.Click To Tweet

Find End-of-Summer Sales

If you live in an area that’ll stay warm for another couple weeks or months, then don’t miss the clearance racks at Target, Gap Kids, Macy’s and Old Navy for their end-of-summer sales on clothing. You’ll find everything from shorts and sandals to t-shirts and tank tops heavily discounted so these stores can make more room for their cold weather collections.

But, if winter isn’t coming just yet, then take advantage of the opportunity to score some great deals on summery clothing for your kids’ first couple months back at school.

Bring Coupons

Coupon clipping is mostly a thing of the past. Nowadays, you can find printable back to school savings within seconds through websites like Passion for Savings or The Krazy Coupon Lady.

There are also plenty of couponing apps out there to help you find coupons that will save you money on everything from backpacks and water bottles to pencils and notebooks. As an added bonus, incentivize your kids help find coupons for their own school shopping lists.

Let them spend the savings on something special, such as a new pencil bag with their favorite heroes or celebrities on it. For example, if they find $10 worth of savings in coupons, then they just earned $10 in extra spending money.

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How to Trade Commodities and Earn a Profit

How to Trade Commodities

How to Trade CommoditiesCommodities represent a massive market for investors. Whether referring to oil, gold, coffee or soybeans, these physical assets can have an equally physical influence on any wealth management system. Still, there is much more involved than simply buying and selling a certain position at a discrete price when learning how to trade commodities.

Commodities trading takes years to master and nothing replaces experience. There are nonetheless a few tips and hints which can shorten the learning curve while providing the trader with valuable guidelines to follow. What are a handful of “golden rules” that professionals have embraced for years?

How to Trade Commodities

The Dangers of Over-Trading

Unlike the mantra espoused by Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street, greed is not always good. One common and potentially fatal mistake that many traders make is to over-trade a certain position. To put this another way, the investor will risk entirely too much capital within a single trade.

Many experts recommend risking no more than 2% of one’s entire holdings at any given time. Even if the position moves in the wrong direction, one’s finances will not be completely wiped away. The point of commodities trading is not to look for a “clean sweep”, but rather to amass wealth over time.

The Almighty Dollar

Always follow the value of the United States dollar in relation to other currencies. As the majority of commodities are valued in dollars, their physical worth is ultimately determined by any movements that this currency makes.

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Would Paying for Everything with Cash Work for You?

Would Living the Cash Only Lifestyle Work for You?

Would Living the Cash Only Lifestyle Work for You?According to a new Gallup poll published in July 2016, just 24% of Americans reportedly use cash for all or most of their purchases, which is a significant drop from the 36% figure reported for the all/most category in 2011. In this survey, just 10% of Americans reported in 2016 that they lived the cash only lifestyle using cash for all of their purchases, while that figure was 19% five years ago.

These statistics suggest that Americans are relying less on cash now more than ever, but this isn’t necessarily a good change. Just look at the March 2016 The New York Times story about how credit cards encourage extra spending as the cash habit fades away. Not only are credit cards more costly for the average American – those transaction fees, interest payments, and missed payment penalties add up, after all – but we’ve become so reliant on credit that 66% of us don’t even have the cash to cover a $1,000 unexpected bill.

According to @Gallup poll, only 24% of Americans use cash for all or most of their purchases.Click To Tweet

Although online retail sales only account for 7.7% of total retail sales, many of us mistakenly believe we’d be cut off from a world of shopping opportunities if we made the switch to a cash only lifestyle. In reality, this would only happen if you switched 100% to cold, hard cash, instead of balancing debit cards, checks, and cash in your new financial approach (none of these methods use credit, after all).

Would Living the Cash Only Lifestyle Work for You?

There’s nothing wrong with swimming against the current in a world obsessed with credit and drowning in debt. If you’ve considered adopting a cash only approach to your finances, here are a few things to consider before fully committing:

Who Would Benefit from Switching to Cash?

If you’re the type of person who treats their credit card just like a debit or charge card – by paying off the statement balance every month – and you don’t have impulsive spending habits, then there’s not much of a need to only use cash. That’s how my wife and I budget using an American Express card.

This isn’t to say that switching to cash is only useful for people with bad or poor credit, impulse shopping problems, and seemingly insurmountable debt burdens. If you encounter these difficulties with your own personal financial management, then you could very well benefit from only using cash, temporarily or permanently. It’s up to you – but there are many financially-savvy people who also opt for cash over cards as well.

Switching to a cash only lifestyle forces you to account for every dollar you spend, so some degree of organization and self-motivation is required. These skills are necessary for money management throughout your life, but the cash only method might not work as well for twenty-somethings.

Many parents encourage their kids to spend within their means by only using cash, but this financial management method might do more harm than good for young adults because their credit history will barely exist and they won’t get in a pattern of making payments (which could be useful later when they have long-term debts, like a mortgage or student loans).

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