By 2 Cents on January 21st, 2010 | Category: Giving | To give and then not feel that one has given is the best of all ways of giving.
~ Max Beerbohm
Giving is something that most of us like to do. We love to buy great gifts for our loved ones, and we want to support charitable institutions that are close to our hearts. But sometimes when we look at our budget, there just doesn’t seem to be anything left over, or we forget to include giving altogether.
When an occasion to give comes up, it can be a real budget-buster, and may even force us to take on unplanned debt. We’ve been talking about budgeting a lot lately, and the crisis in Haiti has put giving on our minds, so I thought I might go over some ways to incorporate giving – without breaking the budget.
Pay It Forward First
Giving: How to Budget for It
By 2 Cents on December 25th, 2009 | Category: BJ News | Love is What’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.
~ Author Unknown, attributed to a 7-year-old boy named Bobby
Merry Christmas!!!
By 2 Cents on December 24th, 2009 | Category: Family | Happy, happy Christmas that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!
~ Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers ~1836
Christmas is about home. Even if we’re not in our actual home on Christmas Day, we are likely visiting the home of someone we care about. That can be homey too.
I am an unrepentant homebody and I therefore love that Christmas gives me a chance to wallow in some serious home time. For me, home means safety, security, the smell of delicious food cooking, the sound of children playing, music, and above all, comfort.
Home is my happy place. Home for Christmas is my happiest place. Wherever you are this Christmas Eve, I wish [...]
Read on and enjoy … Home for Christmas
By 2 Cents on December 23rd, 2009 | Category: Family | To be upset over what you don’t have is to waste what you do have.
~ Ken S. Keyes Jr.
Oh, the wonderful, picture-perfect scenes that Christmas time brings: families hugging, enjoying special food and special times together. Everything is perfect. The children don’t squabble, couples are in sync, and any past disagreements are forgotten. This would be wonderful, but it is unfortunately not usually reality.
Inevitably, someone will do or say something hurtful or inappropriate, whether purposely or not. The children will not always get along. Old wounds may be reopened. That is the reality of getting a group of human beings with a history together.
Does that mean we shouldn’t get together? Does it mean we shouldn’t aim or hope for that picture-perfect holiday? Maybe your cousin will say something insensitive to you, or your uncle will corner you with a twenty minute discussion of something in [...]
Read on and enjoy … Celebrate What Is
By 2 Cents on December 22nd, 2009 | Category: Life Balance | I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
~ Charles Dickens
If you’re a Dickens fan as I am, you know that one of the central themes in a lot of his work is the idea of conversion. Some evil and/or misguided character sees the light in the end and becomes a better person. Everyone is familiar with the Christmas conversion of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carolwhere he ecstatically throws open the shutters of his home on Christmas morning and asks [...]
Read on and enjoy … Christmas Conversion
By 2 Cents on December 18th, 2009 | Category: Life Balance |  Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
~ Carl Sandburg
Time. We can give it, receive it, plan it, take it, spend it, save it, invest it, waste it, kill it, or fill it. We can run out of it, but we can’t stop it. In investing as well as in life, time is an asset. It’s a depreciating asset but it does have some trade-in value.
The clichés surrounding time are too numerous to cover in full and they often contradict each other: Time is priceless. Time is money. Those statements sound contradictory at first, but if you think about it, both say that time has value.
At this time of year, let’s forget for a moment about the time [...]
Read on and enjoy … Time Is An Asset
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