With the holidays right around the corner, you may do more shopping than usual. In the blog post below, you'll learn some of the most costly mistakes shoppers make and how to avoid them so that you don't fall into a trap while doing your holiday shopping.

Holiday décor and music are filling department stores, Starbucks and Dunkin have released their holiday drink menus, and some people have already started putting up their trees. Although I'm not quite in the holly jolly spirit yet, I have begun financially planning for the holidays so that my debt doesn't outweigh my cheer. Below are the tips I'm using to keep myself in check as I kick-start my holiday spending.

When it comes to Halloween, are you a fan of being scared? It may be the optimist in me, but I hate being scared. I'm much more of a Casper the Friendly Ghost or Charlie Brown and The Great Pumpkin kind of girl. However, many people love Halloween's spooky décor, haunted houses, and scary movies. If you're a lover of all things scary, watch your back for the most frightening thing of all this Halloween season, High-Cost Lending.

With Halloween a little over a week away, we're running out of time to do all the fun Halloween activities. Luckily, the City of Conway, or should I say Halloween, has a little bit of everything for folks to enjoy. 

If you follow me on my brand ambassador Instagram account, successinthebag, you may know that I've recently been having car troubles. Pulling money out of my emergency savings account for recent repairs has made me think about trading in my vehicle for something new. Because I've already had to spend quite a bit of money repairing my current car, a big down payment on something new isn't ideal, making me consider the possibility of leasing.

Since I've never leased any of my previous vehicles, I didn't have much prior knowledge of the ends and outs of a car lease. I've been doing a lot of research recently about typical leasing agreements and options for when your lease is over. During my research, I found the BALANCE article below, which gave me all the information I needed about potentially buying a car you're leasing once the lease is over.

For a girl like me who's obsessed with pink, there's no better month of the year than October. Not only do I love seeing things transform to my favorite color, but also being able to raise awareness for the important cause that pink stands for, Breast Cancer.

One of the most complex parts of sticking to a budget is breaking unhealthy spending habits and creating new healthy ones. Evaluating your spending and determining which aspects prevent you from sticking to your budget is an excellent place to start.

Check out the BALANCE blog post below for 5 Habits Every Budgeter Should Develop:

Fall is officially here, although it may not seem like it with 80-degree weather and palm trees instead of falling leaves.

Growing up in the mountains of Virginia, the arrival of fall was always seen and felt. It didn't take much to really get into the fall spirit. However, when I moved to the beach, I found that embracing the fall season required more effort on my end.

Since there isn't a major transition in the environment around me to help get me excited about fall, I've relied on the following things to get me in the spirit.

Every year when the kids head back to school, and the weather gets cooler, the south gets ready for their favorite season of the year, football season. Sports have become such an integral part of our society that I feel like our seasons of the year revolve around them; Football Season, Basketball Season, Baseball Season and Summer.

With sports playing such a huge role in people's lives, they tend to start their children in youth leagues as early as possible and fill their nights and weekends with sporting events from that time on. According to the National Council on Youth Sports, parents spend an average of $671 per year on youth sports, with 20%of parents spending over $1,000 or more per year—on each child!

The good news is parents have options when it comes to sports-related spending. Check out the BALANCE blog post below for tips on how to balance the family sports budget: