This week’s carnival is a smorgasbord of good ideas about saving, tips for holiday shopping, and general good advice for the future. Even Santa could use good advice about his retirement plan.

Dissecting Success
Darwin presents The #1 Thing You Need to Be Successful in Life (That Nobody Talks About) posted at Darwin’s Money .
Success depends on this one single thing. From investing to career to relationships, this single behavior makes or breaks it, yet nobody talks about it.

When You Budget, Do You Plan for Everything?
Michael Kitces presents The Challenges Of Planning For Irregular Expenses posted at Nerd’s Eye View.
Just focusing on recurring monthly expenses when budgeting can lead to a significant underestimate of true spending, because of large irregular expenses that have a big bottom line impact. Adjust for this by trying to estimate every expense and convert it into a monthly amount, just to get a more accurate estimate of ongoing spending, or try to estimate the amounts of irregular expenses and the timing of when they might occur.

Make Sure Your Retirement Plan Has Reasonable Assumptions
Ted Jenkin presents Three Mistakes With Retirement Planning Assumptions posted at Your Smart Money Moves.
The assumptions made within your financial plan can be very conservative or very aggressive depending on your viewpoint about planning for your retirement. Making assumptions is something we do every day in our lives. Essentially, as assumption is nothing more than something taken for granted or accepted as true without proof. In other words, it is belief without proof. When it comes to your retirement, you need to ask about these three assumptions or your retirement plan may really be nothing more than a pipe dream.

Christmas Shopping—the Easy Way
Harry Campbell presents Why I Prefer to Make My Own Black Friday Deals posted at Your Personal Finance Pro.
I’d much rather sit back in the comfort of my own home and shop online. This type of shopping might not be appealing to everyone but it definitely works for me. I’m the type of shopper who will only go somewhere with the intent of buying. I don’t like to browse too much, that’s a waste of my time. Instead, if I have an item in mind, I’ll figure out the cheapest price and go buy it. Sometimes these impulsive decisions don’t work out but generally I’ve been very happy with the purchases I’ve made.

How Do You Build Credit in College? Very Carefully….
How To Build Credit In College with No Money posted at Green Panda Treehouse.
How to build some credit.

Ready, Set, Save (for the Future)!
Jacob @ My Personal Finance Journey presents I Don’t Need to Save for Retirement Yet, Right? posted at My Personal Finance Journey.
This post addresses the question of whether or not one should start saving for their retirement as early as their 20s and 30s and discusses why it’s important to start as early as possible to save for the future.

Try Mixing Things Up
Mike presents Things Are Gonna Change! How To Kill Your Routine for the Greater Good posted at The Financial Blogger.
How to blast through a plateau to hit new goals.

 

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Carnival images are by impressionistic artist Leonid Afremov using a palette knife and oils. They are used with his permission.

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