Category: Frugal Living Tips

Everyone needs to think about the future. Life is full of many twists and turns, and failure to prepare for them could leave you in a precarious position. You’ll need to embrace the idea of long-term financial planning if you want to come out the other side of life in one piece.

Setting financial goals can help you get in control of your personal financial future. However, if you’ve never thought of the long-term in this way, it can be difficult to determine how to get started.

What are some financial planning tactics that you should look into if you want to set yourself up for a more stable future? Read on and we’ll walk you through what you need to know. 

1. Considering Retirement

We don’t all work forever, even if we do for most of our lives. The last period of most people’s lives is marked by some sort of retirement. This is where the routine of work is cast aside and the idea of freedom is embraced. Usually, sometimes after your 60s. 

Retirement is often the biggest subject on the mind of many people as they look towards their financial futures. It’s important to really think about what your retirement might look like, what your goals and hopes are, and how much money you might need to live in the way that you envision. 

Doing so can be a challenge for many Americans.

You can start off by creating a budget for these years. Think about what a week in your retired life might look like: where will you live, what will you do? This can help you to create an estimated budget for what this lifestyle might cost.

Don’t forget to factor other costs into your week-by-week life at this point. Higher healthcare costs, for example, will likely be difficult to avoid. This is just a reality of getting older.

If you think you’ll have money coming in at this point, whether it be through some form of income or through social security, you’ll want to factor this in as well. Retirement plan payouts and pensions should also be considered. 

Your expected expenses minus your expected income should give you a number that will represent how much you’ll need to have saved up for retirement.

How much are you saving right now on an annual basis? If you haven’t been keeping track, now is a good time to start doing so. Have a retirement date in mind and see how much you will have saved by that time if you keep up at the same rate of saving as you are now.

How are things looking? You should have a clear idea by doing this simple math. If you need to start saving more in order to reach your retirement goals, it’s time to start doing so. Look at your current budget and see where you can divert funds.

2. Late In Life Living

Another big element of late in life living you need to consider? Where you’ll be living. It is obviously difficult to plan for what your situation might be many years into the future. You don’t know how your health might be. You don’t know if you’ll be alone or not.

Maybe you’ll be able to live on your own, take care of all your responsibilities, and travel from place to place freely. Maybe you won’t be able to and you’ll need assistance. 

You might need to look into nursing homes near me if you’re interested in getting a view of what all the options might be like. If you think you might end up needing assistance in your later years, you’ll need to budget for this kind of care as well.

There are many different kinds of retirement homes out there and they can vary wildly in price. Looking into the many options and considering which might be right for you can help you plan for your future.

3. Life Insurance

Do you have a life insurance policy currently? If not, it’s something that you might want to consider. If you have a family, part of your long-term financial planning should be considering how you will care for them in the future, even once you are no longer on the Earth.

Getting a strong life insurance policy is generally considered the best way to go about this. The earlier in life you lock in a life insurance policy, the better price you’ll get for it. If you wait too late, you might end up locking yourself in at extremely high premiums.

This is especially true if you do so once health complications have already arisen. It can be extremely difficult to get proper life insurance if you have pre-existing conditions. The earlier you can obtain it, the healthier you are, the better.

There are many different kinds of life insurance out there and you’ll need to do your research and decide which is best for you. Whole life insurance covers you without question until death, while term life insurance covers you for a certain number of years before expiring.

It’s important to shop around and see what the provider might offer you the best rate.

Long-Term Financial Planning Tips and Tricks

If you think it’s time to start thinking about your later years, you’ll want to dig into some of the long-term financial planning tips listed above. Each of these subject matters is important to think about if you’re hoping to ensure a stable and comfortable future for yourself in your later years.

Need more health and family advice? Keep scrolling our blog for more.

Approximately 1 in 8 children have a mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder. Like adults, children have used therapy to receive treatment for their condition. But is child counseling beneficial for every child? 

With this guide, we dived deep and investigated the in’s and out’s of child therapy. From what it is to when you should seek treatment for your child, you can learn a few important counseling facts. 

Now, are you ready to get started? Here’s a quick look at child therapy: 

What Is Child Counseling? 

Child therapy focuses on young children, teens, and young adults with one or more mental illnesses. It also offers support to children who’ve experienced trauma or have a stressful home life. 

Many of the problems these children face embody the same issues adults encounter in their everyday lives. For example, children encounter anxiety, depression, and even grief. The primary objective of child therapy is to break down these issues into manageable pieces so that children can understand their feelings and how to cope.  

Who Specializes in Child Therapy? 

Child counselors or child therapists are specialists in the mental health field. They provide insight into the child’s mental health, social environment, and emotional development. Oftentimes, the people closest to the child don’t see or understand the child’s frustrations. 

That’s where a children’s therapist comes in. From an outside perspective, they can help your child through his or her feelings/ frustrations without any bias. 

With such expertise, therapists can recognize, assess, and treat a wide variety of mental health disorders, adjustment issues, and psychological trauma. Some child therapists are even trained to “think like children,” so they can make sense of what goes on in their minds, bodies, and overall lives. 

When Should You Seek Therapy For Your Child?  

Children deal with school stress, friend drama, bullying, home anxiety, and other transitions all differently. Some children feel they can talk openly with their parents, while others may feel ashamed or embarrassed to do so. Here are a few common signs your child should speak with a therapist: 

• Changes in sleeping or eating habits 
• Engaging in risky or self-destructive behavior 
• Feelings of sadness  
• Isolates from friends 
• Talks about death regularly 

Therapy can help children, teens, and young adults understand the root of their feelings or frustrations. It can even help kids learn how to better understand and manage them without triggering anxiety, depression, or trauma-filled emotions. Thus, child counseling prepares children with the coping skills and techniques that will better prepare them for the future. 

Hire a Child Counselor Today

Determining whether your child needs counseling can be a tough and emotional decision. However, counseling can be beneficial for children who have anxiety, depression, stressful family dynamics, or experienced trauma. 

While therapy is sometimes looked down upon, it can be used to help children heal and better understand their own frustrations and emotions. Counseling even provides children with coping skills and techniques for their future. 

Now, for more information about child counseling, visit our website today. We look forward to helping you! 

Take-out night is a staple in American households to give everyone a delicious treat. All that take-out adds up to over a third of each dollar you spend on food. 

When you pay for a meal at a restaurant, you’re paying for more than the food. The price you pay also covers labor and other overhead costs at the restaurant. 

What happens if you take that money and recreate your restaurant favorites at home? Without the costs of running a restaurant, you save money on food. 

This guide contains tips on the best ways to save money with DIY meals. Start your savings adventure by using one of these recipe ideas for tomorrow’s dinner.

The Best Ways to Save Money and Eat Your Restaurant Favorites

One way to save money on restaurant recipes is to use cheaper meat. Sometimes something as simple as using chicken instead of beef makes a difference.

Fresh fish costs 3-4 times more than other meats. The best way to save money on fish is to catch your own. Grab your inflatable fishing boat and spend the weekend stocking up on fish.

Try Upscale Olive Garden DIY Recipes

Unless you eat nothing but soup and breadsticks, Olive Garden costs a fortune. You can recreate your restaurant favorites at home with a little time and effort.

The best way to save money is to pick food recipes that use items you buy often. Pasta is a staple in every pantry, so pick chicken scampi or alfredo to cook. Don’t forget to add breadsticks and salad for a real restaurant experience at home.

Surprise your family with an Olive Garden favorite for dessert. Tiramisu is a no-bake dessert you can whip up in the afternoon. It might be cheap and easy, but your family will think it cost a fortune. 

Food Recipes to Try for Taco Bell DIY Night

With the recent changes to the Taco Bell menu, some of your favorites might vanish. Stay ahead of their changes, and save money, by making Taco Bell at home.

Everyone can make a regular bean burrito with red sauce and onions. Branch out with your Taco Bell DIY and try harder recipes, like the Crunchwrap. If you’re watching your weight, make a black bean Crunchwrap, instead.

Nachos are always a crowd-pleaser. Make dinnertime interactive and set up a taco bar made with a Taco Bell twist. Look for packages of Taco Bell meat seasoning to ensure everything tastes right.

Make These Restaurant Favorites to Save Money and Eat Like Royalty

Often when you think about saving money on food, it means eating less. In reality, you save money by eating at home more often. At home, you’re not paying the overhead costs that raise restaurant prices.

Go back to eating out as a special occasion a few times a year. That gives you time to save up and treat yourself to a real gourmet feast. 

Are you looking for more ways to save money? Take a look through our articles to find tons of money-saving tips and tricks.

Roughly 40 million Americans hit up campsites every year. When they do, it’s almost certain that they’ll build a campfire.

Campfires and camping trips go hand in hand. Unfortunately, though, campfires can be stressful to build, to maintain, and to keep from causing catastrophic damage to countless acres of land.

Therein lies the purpose of this post on campfire mistakes.

Our team’s aim here is to prep you ahead of your next camping trip by telling you everything you shouldn’t do when you’re building fires in the wilderness. We hope that by taking in these no-nos, your next fire experience will go off without a hitch.

Keep reading to learn more!

1. Using Damp Material

Opening up our list of campfire mistakes is the all too common error of using damp material.

If you intend to scavenge for burnable material for starting a campfire, you’d better hope that it hasn’t rained recently. When material is damp, it isn’t going to burn.

Since dampness at your campsite can be unpredictable, we recommend bringing backup firewood from a store to avoid any surprises.

2. Forgetting About Tinder

For those of you that are planning on burning wood logs, understand that getting a fire going isn’t going to be as easy as taking a match to your wood and it going up in flames.

Wood for campfires is hard to burn, especially thick wood. To get it to light, you need to subject it to a steady flame for an elongated period. That’s where kindling comes in handy.

Kindling is small, easily lit material that you can feed into the fire to keep a flame going. Over time, your kindling should be able to heat your primary logs enough that they’ll catch.

3. Not Clearing the Area of Brush

One strong wind hitting your campfire could blow hot debris into the surrounding forest and cause millions of acres to burn. Avoiding that is as easy as making sure that the area surrounding your fire is void of flammable materials. You’ll also want to dig a hole for your fire pit, assuming your campsite doesn’t already have one pre-built.

A small amount of diligence to ensure that your campsite is safe can save thousands of lives so don’t forgo this process.

4. Ignoring Emergency Prep

What if no matter how much you prepare, something adverse happens and a small bit of brush near the forest catches fire. Who would you call? How could you quickly act to stop the spread?

Having answers to those questions is imperative to avoid a bad situation becoming much worse.

Our advice is to make sure your cellphones have enough signal to call emergency services. If they don’t, consider investing in a short-range radio that can ping park authorities. You’d also do well to have a fire extinguisher on hand and quality rope/twine from producers like TwistedGoat to manage miscellaneous events.

5. Failing to Check the Weather

This may seem like an obvious campfire but believe it or not, several people skip this step and pay for it. So, let us remind you that no matter how good you are at starting fires if it’s going to rain the weekend you’re going camping, you’re going to have a bad time.

Check the weather daily before you hit the road to your campsite. If you suspect rain, consider postponing your trip.

6. Getting Too Comfortable

You’ve got your fire lit, you’re sat in your chair enjoying its warmth… Now all that’s left to do is relax, right? Wrong!

First off, fire is very unpredictable as are the people sitting around it so it’s best to maintain vigilance while your fire is active. Second, most fires will require constant attention to keep going. That may mean adding more wood or prodding the fire.

If your intention is to rest and relax, assign a rotating fire duty to your camping crew so people can babysit your flame in shifts.

7. Losing Sight of Children

Children and fire don’t make a good combination. If you lose track of children playing near fire, you may end up with accidents that could lead to lifelong scarring or worse.

If there are kids at your campsite, be proactive in educating them about the dangers of fire and rules they’re to follow to obviate that danger. Even after getting briefed, make sure that whoever is minding the fire at any particular moment is also minding the young people close to it.

8. Not Putting Your Fire Out Fully

When you’re done with your fire for the night, do not let it burn itself out. It may very well burn itself out but it could also burn down all of its surroundings.

A hard and fast rule of camping is that if no one is actively minding the fire, it needs to be doused and checked to ensure it’s fully extinguished. No exceptions.

Avoiding Campfire Mistakes Makes for Positive Memories

Most of us have been on camping trips that are better off forgotten. To make sure your next trip isn’t one of those, heed the campfire mistakes we’ve shared and do what you can to avoid committing them.

Your proactive actions can do wonders when it comes to creating positive memories over the course of your camp out and when it comes to the safety of those you’re sharing the area with.

Hungry for more tips on how to successfully camp or do several other affordable and fun things? If so, explore additional content on our blog!

Do you have a child who is scared to go to the dentist? This is actually a lot more common than you might think.

Over the years, studies have shown that somewhere between 10 and 20% of kids have a fear of dentists. The parents of these kids often struggle to get them to sit still while they’re having their teeth looked at and cleaned by a dentist.

If your child falls into this category, you should work to teach them how to get over a fear of dentists. There are several things you can do to ease their extreme fear of dentists over time.

Check out four ways in which you can help your child to overcome their fear of dentists below.

1. Begin by Talking to Your Child About Their Fear of Dentists

If you suspect that your child might have a fear of dentists, you should begin by sitting down and talking to them about it. It’ll help you figure out what exactly they’re so scared of.

More often than not, kids are afraid to go to the dentist simply because they don’t know what to expect from it. You might be able to ease your child’s troubled mind by speaking with them about why they’re scared and answering any questions they might have about going to the dentist.

2. Play Dentist at Home to Get Your Child Used to Having Their Teeth Looked At

The physical act of sitting back in a chair and having a dentist look at their teeth is what scares a lot of kids when it comes to going to the dentist. It makes them feel very vulnerable, which can, in turn, make them feel very scared.

With this in mind, you might be able to help your child overcome their fear of dentists by playing dentist at home. You can have them sit back in your lap while you count their teeth and look at what’s going on inside their mouth.

This will make them feel more comfortable as far as having someone poke and prod the inside of their mouth. It’ll show them that they don’t have anything to worry about.

3. Make a Trip to the Dentist’s Office Sound Like a Lot of Fun to Your Child

A lot of kids start to dread going to the dentist because their parents make it sound like it’s going to be an awful experience. You should steer clear of doing this and make a trip to the dentist’s office sound like it’s going to be a blast instead.

Tell your child about all the fun toys and books that will be in the waiting room for them. Play up the fact that the dentist is going to give them a new toothbrush and floss. It’ll have them anticipating their trip to the dentist rather than dreading it.

4. Take Your Child to a Dentist Who Understands the Fears Some Kids Have

At the end of the day, you’re probably not going to be able to get your child to fully overcome their fear of dentists. Heck, there are still a lot of grown-ups who dread going to the dentist!

But you can make the experience more pleasant than it would be otherwise for them by calling on a pediatric dentist who specializes in treating kids who are scared to go to the dentist. They’ll be able to use their own tricks to get your child to fall in love with taking good care of their teeth. 

Start Helping Your Child Overcome Their Fear of Dentists Today

The sooner your child is able to get over their fear of dentists, the sooner you’ll be able to take them to the dentist without them kicking and screaming the whole way. It’ll ensure that they’re able to get the best possible dental care as they grow up.

Put the tips that we’ve provided for you here to good use. They’ll make a big difference as far as how your child feels about going to the dentist moving forward.

Take a look at the rest of the articles on our blog to find more helpful parenting tips.