I’d thought I’d share about one of my family’s traditions that many families have – of buying one larger gift for a name that you draw, rather than buying a little something for everyone.

For my family, this tradition started when we were seven (I’m a twin). My mom realized that we were getting more interested in buying gifts for family members, but also didn’t exactly have the money to buy something nice for everyone. This meant that we were prone to want to spend a couple of dollars on each person and thus basically waste our holiday money on nothing.

My mom’s solution to this was to have us each draw a name out of a hat at Thanksgiving and buy for only one family member. This meant that you got one nice gift that was well thought out rather than a bunch of nothing.

Originally we each got $20 for our gift. Back then you could actually buy something for that! By the time we were in college this went up to $50.

We loved this tradition and did it consistently until we were past college and starting to get complicated with spouses and not being together for the holidays. Thus now it has fallen out of vogue, but it is a found memory from our holiday traditions.

Happy Holidays,

Miel

MANAGE YOUR MONEY TOGETHER

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1) Collaborate: Meet regularly to talk about money, set goals together, track and monitor them.

2) Understand and respect your partner. Take time to understand your partners values about money.

3) Watch the numbers. Get a budget, monitor your spending and track your net worth.

4) Max your retirement. Maximize contributions to your tax deferred retirement accounts.

5) Invest in stock. Stocks perform better than bonds or cash.

6) Avoid high interest debt. Credit cards and title loans are financial cancer.

7) Diversify. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

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