It's 2010 - a New Generation is beginning!

It's a time to be creative with your travel.

Not to accept the normal ways of doing everyday activities.

It's a time of innovation, reflection, motivation and doing. What am I raving on about?
 

The holiday season - roughly that time between Halloween and New Years - can be a wonderful time, but all too often it becomes one crisis after another as we try to fit travel, family gatherings, decorating, gifts, and elaborate meals into our already packed schedules.

Most articles that promise to take the stress out of your holiday season simply boil down to "do less." For me, that doesn't work. I don't really want to cut out visits with family or elaborate meals. For me, those are the things that make the holidays different from the rest of the year. Yes, they are a lot of work, but stripping them out would take away some of the magic too. There has to be a middle ground between baking sugar cookies at 3am and eating take-out on Thanksgiving.

The biggest semi-discretionary chunk of most household budgets is for food. You have to eat, but how much you spend doing it can vary widely. This week we're approaching meals from a strategic planning perspective. Trust me, it beats standing in front of the fridge at 6pm with a mob of kids assuring you that if they aren't fed soon they will surely die!

Bake sales seem like simple fundraisers but they can fail as easily as they can succeed. Knowing a few strategies will give your group the best advantage and make your bake sale a success.