Eat, Save, and Be Healthy

Do you remember each and every Christmas gift you received as a child? In my family, I am noted as the person with the most “long term memory,” but even I can only remember a handful of them. What I do remember most about Christmases’ past is the day spent with extended family, the pretty tree and decorations, and of course all the good food. So if you’re sitting at home this January feeling guilty because you didn’t give your kids the usual Santa bag full of gifts, take heart. They are not going to be scarred for life because they didn’t get a ton of presents last month.

That being said, I acknowledge that gift giving is an important part of the holidays. Who can forget the excitement of bedtime on Christmas Eve, when you knew morning would bring a world of magic? From an adult perspective, the holidays aren’t quite so magical, and it’s not because you know who Santa really is. This is just my personal take on the holidays, but I really don’t mind the extra work of decorating and cooking. It’s finding the extra dollars to purchase gifts that is the biggest challenge. Christmas can be a difficult time of year, money-wise. It’s too late now to do anything about the Christmas that just passed, but you can make plans to handle next year’s financial holiday stress by considering an old-fashioned concept—opening a Christmas Club.

Christmas club accounts were very popular when I was a kid. My mom had one for the family and I had a small one for myself. It cost 50 cents a week, and every November I would get a check for $25 to spend on gifts for my parents and siblings ($25 bought a lot of stuff in the 60’s). I would divide up my paper route money and put $2 away every month. As credit cards became more prevalent in the 70’s and 80’s, people let go of the Christmas club method of savings. The current recession might be the perfect time to resurrect that tradition.

Christmas clubs were savings programs set up by banks during the Great Depression. If you wanted to participate, you would pick an amount of money you thought was needed for gifts, deposit a set amount every week, and receive the money back at the end of the year (just in time for Christmas shopping). The check would include the amount you deposited, plus some interest. With the current economic situation being what it is, the interest you earn will be minimal, but that is true of most savings accounts right now. The real financial advantage will come when you spend cash for your gifts instead of credit. That way you avoid the interest and charges you would usually be paying January through June of the following year. What good does it do to fight the crowds on Black Friday to get a $60 sweater for $30 if you end up paying $80 for it with all the interest charges?

Some of you might be thinking “I can do this on my own without having to use a special account.” If you can, that’s great. But if you need a little more structure to keep you honest, a Christmas club is the perfect solution. Most of the banks that are located where I live in northern Ohio offer Christmas clubs. January is the perfect time to go to your bank and talk to a representative about starting an account. It is also a time for resolutions of all kinds (both health and wealth), so this would be one small step you could implement that would pay large dividends next December. Ask for an amount to be automatically withdrawn from your checking account and transferred into your Christmas club.

Some of the features you might want to inquire about include no minimum balance requirements, competitive interest rates, direct deposit, one free withdrawal, and no monthly maintenance fee. Decide beforehand how much you think you will need to budget for gift giving, so you have a target figure in mind when you decide how much you want transferred into your club account. It’s actually easier to have a Christmas club account today than it was when I was a kid and I had to physically walk or ride my bike up to the bank every week to deposit some of hard-earned paper boy money!

A lot of full service customer options have gone the way of the dodo bird, from the guy who filled your tank at the gas station and washed your car windows to the farm workers who went door-to-door in our neighborhood selling fresh leaf lettuce and vegetables. I’m glad our banking institutions still offer this amenity to their customers. Once again, the way our parents and grandparents managed their finances is looking more and more attractive to a new generation of spenders.

Written by:

Donna Green
Extension Educator, Family and Consumer Sciences
Ohio State University Extension

Have you ever watched the show “Hoarders” on TV? Hoarding is a serious behavior issue that affects between 700,000 and 1.4 million people in the United States. It is defined by the Mayo Clinic as the “excessive collection of items, along with the inability to discard them.” Many of us are not in that advanced state of compulsion, but we do tend to get overwhelmed at times with the clutter in our homes. And now we are fast approaching the time of year when we are not only encouraged to add more material possessions to our homes, but expected to spend a lot of money for the privilege of doing so!

Clutter is part of hoarding, but having clutter does not mean that you are a hoarder. The dictionary defines clutter as “a confused or disordered state or collection; a jumble.” Clutter may be comforting to some individuals, but for the rest of us, clutter undermines our ability to live simply and peacefully. I realize that my house is not your house. We all have different levels of tolerance for how much in our home is too much. But one commonality we all share is that every single item we bring into our home needs to be maintained in some way, shape, or form.

And now here comes Christmas. Bringing in new clutter (to pile on top of the old clutter) can make even the most “relaxed” housekeepers go off the rails. I would like to suggest that you think early and carefully about the gifts you are giving to others, and make a conscious decision to try and reduce the number of objects that will come into the house this month. To that end, I have incorporated some suggestions to help make your holiday season a little less chaotic and cluttered; take and use what works for you personally.

#1–Begin preparing for Christmas by taking steps to de-clutter your home. Challenge yourself to remove three items every week from your home between now and Christmas so that your space begins to feel calmer. If a lot of gifts do come in over Christmas, you will have more room to store them.

#2–Give your loved ones the gift of an experience rather than a physical item. Gift cards for the movies, a play, or a concert are specialty items that most people enjoy but don’t always purchase for themselves. Other choices might include a day’s outing to a ski area or the bowling alley. Season passes to an amusement park or the zoo are friendly ways for friends and family to connect with each other beyond a one-day event.

#3—Begin a new family tradition by incorporating a “white elephant” gift exchange. Bring a good, used item from home that you don’t need or want and share it with someone else.

#4—Purchase one “family” gift that benefits everyone, such as a home furnishing item. A nice ottoman, new pillows for the couch, or a flat screen TV are good gift choices that can be enjoyed by all members of the family.

#5—Clutter can also occur in the kitchen. Try not to lose control when it comes to food purchases for the holidays. Be realistic about what you will consume. Kitchen cupboards become cluttered due to overbuying and then not cooking from your own pantry. Go through your cupboards well in advance and try to use up what you can, or donate items to a local food pantry.

#6—Speaking of food, how about a gift card for a favorite restaurant? Or even just for pizza? Everyone likes to eat out once in a while, and for families with limited incomes, an evening out might be a memory maker as well.

#7—A gift of specialty foods such as artichoke hearts or capers, bottle of wine, or special cheese is appreciated by most folks, even if they’re not on a tight budget.

#8—Last, but not least, consider giving someone (of any age) the gift of lessons. When I was a child, I really wanted to take baton lessons. My parents couldn’t afford it, so I had to miss out. Is there some skill or craft you know of that a family member would like to learn? Stained glass? Pottery? Dance lessons? The teenage son of a friend of mine was given flying lessons when he was in high school; now he is in college studying aviation. The sky’s the limit when it comes to potential ideas (pun not intentional!!).

We can complain until the cows come home that Christmas has become too commercial, but the fact remains that gift-giving is a large part of the holiday season. Encourage those you exchange gifts with to consider “clutter-free” gift giving this year. It will truly be the gift that keeps on giving!!

Source: Dias, Denise, Hoarding: The Impact of Compulsive Keepers, Fact Sheet, Kansas State University, August 2011

Written by:
Donna Green
Extension Educator, Family and Consumer Sciences
Ohio State University Extension

News reports may state that the recession is winding down, but some families around the area are still having a hard time making ends meet. To complete the financial slam-dunk, here come the holidays. The Christmas holiday season is fraught with angst and anxiety under the best of circumstances, adding additional work and stress to families. Throw money issues into the mix and you have a recipe for family melt-down.

Whether you are having money issues or not, you might want to rethink how you celebrate the holiday season. Have you grown discouraged by the commercialization of a religious holiday? Would you like to make the holidays more meaningful and less about consumption? Then you may want to change your mind set about gift-giving. Most Christmas gifts usually only provide momentary happiness. As soon as something becomes yours, its value is diminished by use and familiarity.

How about accumulating memories instead of stuff? Do any of you with children really want more toys to trip over and store? Do the adults out there need more ties or shirts? Why not take some time over the holidays to go out into the community and do things as a family? I guarantee your kids will cherish and remember those outings much more than a toy or an article of clothing. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. There are many fun things going on in the state over the next few weeks that are free or low cost.

How about a drive around your community to look at the Christmas lights? Take some hot chocolate in a thermos and popcorn to snack on in the car, and roll down the windows a little to feel the fresh, cold air. If the weather cooperates and it snows, head over to the nearest sledding hill for an afternoon. If you don’t own a sled, they are pretty inexpensive to purchase, or you may be able to borrow one from a neighbor. An old inner tube is one of the most fun ways to descend a hill, and not quite so difficult to navigate if you have older joints or a more “mature” body.

If you can afford to spend a little more for a day’s outing, you might want to drive to Cleveland to check out “Snow Days” at Progressive Field (home of the Cleveland Indians). The Indians organization is turning the ballpark into a winter wonderland with a snow tubing hill, ice skating rink, walking trail, and fire pit. The tubing hill, called the “Batterhorn,” is over 60 feet high and refreshed with snow made daily. The park will be open for five weeks from Thanksgiving thru New Year’s Day. Cost is as low as $5 per person, but check out the Indians website for specific information on times and charges.

Many zoos celebrate the holiday season with lighting displays. They are literally transformed with millions of light and images. Grandparents may want to take their grandchildren, or even buy passes for the family as a Christmas gift so the zoo can be enjoyed all year long. Bowling is a fun and active way to spend an afternoon in January when it is too cold to be outside for long periods of time.

No matter what your family’s age range, try to schedule some holiday togetherness. You can never get these years back, the present becomes the past and it is gone. Think outside the box and make your gift choices interactive, memory-making, and meaningful.

To get you primed for this holiday paradigm shift, log onto the Ohio Department of Aging website and type “depression stories” into the search box at the top right of the screen. When the page loads, scroll down to the Christmas link and read about stories of what holidays were like during the depression. I’m sure you will be as moved as I was when you read the recollections of Christmas from some of our older senior citizens. Below is a story submitted by Carolyn Davison, age 86, Columbus:

“Our Christmases were so exciting! Christmas Eve, we would go down to the market after it closed, pick up a tree they had thrown away, and decorate it that night. What family fun for my brother, sister, me and my mom and dad! It always was beautiful in my childish eyes. We had no gifts under our tree until the day after. The morning after Christmas, we went down to Montgomery Ward on Main Street and Mother and Daddy purchased our gifts at sale price. In those days, the day after Christmas was really honestly marked down good merchandise before Jan. 1 inventory. I remember one year I wanted a certain doll so bad, but of course we couldn’t afford it. The day after Christmas, we went down to Montgomery Ward and yes, there was one of my dolls still for sale, marked down. My mother grabbed her up and hugged her and actually cried. She had been marked down enough for us to buy her. My daughter has her in her treasures.”

Written by Donna Green, FCS Educator, OSU Extension, Erie County