FCTI - Blog

Thanksgiving is often viewed as the beginning of the holiday season. For many Americans, it is both a celebration and the last moment to take a breath before the year-end run of parties, events, and family.

Topics: consumer budgets, money management, household budgets, financial education

If you are rolling your eyes or huffing in disbelief right now, I'm talking to you. Whether it's five cents or five hundred dollars doesn't matter. Every single time you are put away money is a step toward a better financial future.

Topics: consumer budgets, money management, household budgets, financial education

If you feel like your financial woes are wearing you down, you aren’t alone. Economic insecurity consumes a great deal of mental energy and generates large amounts of stress. Both can be physically and cognitively taxing. In short, your money woes are affecting more than your pocketbook. They have a direct impact on your ability to make decisions.

Topics: consumer budgets, money management, household budgets, financial education

Are you the spender in your family? If it isn’t you, I bet someone came to mind. For families and large households, staying on a budget takes more than one committed individual. Either the entire group understands and pitches in, or the endeavor as the whole hangs by a thread.

Topics: consumer budgets, money management, household budgets, financial education

Halloween is within reach. Thanksgiving has not yet wholly entered consumer consciousness. Yet the local department stores are already loading their parking lots with storage containers and building displays featuring Santa and snowmen. It is only a matter of time before we are overcome by the jaunty tunes of “Jingle Bells,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and other tunes.

But no matter how much one might enjoy what we so affectionately refer to as “The Holidays,” this time of year also brings added financial stress for most Americans.

Topics: consumer budgets, money management, household budgets, financial education, holiday stress

Developing a workable budget that fits your lifestyle and circumstances is hard enough without having a good place to start. Use this free monthly planner and cash-flow worksheet to help you get your ducks in a row!

Topics: consumer budgets, money management, household budgets, financial education

We’ve talked about home cooked meals, ditching disposables, quality over quantity as ways people used to scrimp and save. But, when money was really tight, those three strategies were far from enough to help people get by.

Here are three MORE ways people used to save money that are still applicable.

Topics: consumer budgets, money management, household budgets, financial education

 

From 1929-1939, the Great Depression swept Americans into financial destitution. Slow consumer spending created lower rates of production, causing businesses to reduce in size, lay off workers, or close their doors for good. Millions were unemployed, and there was a rising number of homeless.

Topics: consumer budgets, money management, household budgets, financial education

Over a quarter of consumers fall victim to the impulse buy when purchasing goods in-store.

These are not people who are entering a store to meander aimlessly and wind up making a purchase. These are individuals who entered an establishment with the intent of buying one or more specific things and ended up adding items to their cart beyond their identified items(s).

Topics: consumer budgets, money management, household budgets, financial education, in-store advertising