• Childfree people may be saving too much and spending too little, one financial planner says.
• Childfree Wealth's Jay Zigmont said people without kids who don't want to pass on wealth should spend it.
• He recommended they help others early in life, keep a cash cushion, and plan for long-term care.

Many childfree people should be spending more and saving less, one financial guru says.

One reason they may be too frugal is conventional financial plans often assume people have kids or want them, meaning those without children get a lot of "bad advice," Jay Zigmont, the author of "The Childfree Guide to Life and Money," said on a recent episode of Morningstar's "The Long View" podcast.

While parents often set financial goals with the intention of leaving money to the next generation, that often isn't a priority for people without kids, Zigmont said. Focusing on how to maximize their health, their wealth, and their time is often a better option, he said.

The certified financial planner, who holds a PhD in adult learning, said he and his wife plan to give whatever they leave behind to their nephews. "If they get $10,000 or $100,000, that's fine. But if they get $1 million, we made a mistake," he quipped.

Moreover, many of Zigmont's childfree clients don't plan to retire fully but instead plan to "dial back on work rather than a complete cutout."

Zigmont said if they don't want a load of money to their names when they die, and they plan to work until late in life, that changes the calculus for their spending.

He simulated one client's wealth trajectory over their lifespan, and found they were on track to die with $100 million. The client laughed when he said they have a "$100 million problem," Zigmont recalled.

"If your goal is not to leave a whole lot of money to your estate or wherever else it is, you are saving money and investing it in a way it doesn't match your goals," he said.

Minimum spending goals

Another client still buys frozen blueberries because they're a "dollar cheaper" than the fresh ones, and a third with tens of millions of dollars to their name is "still cutting coupons," Zigmont said, underscoring how hard it can be to break a saving habit.

He works with clients to set minimum rather than maximum annual spending goals to help them bend their net-worth curves and avoid accumulating wealth they don't want.

"I had a client the other day, like 'You'd be proud of us. Last year we spent double what we did the year before!' And I'm like, 'Yes, and we're celebrating it,'" Zigmont said.

The personal finance guru also touched on a mid-life crisis that many childfree people have where they've hit many of their life goals in their 30s and 40s and begin wondering what they're going to do with the rest of their lives.

"Those are the tough questions that we as childfree people are answering much earlier that often parents don't answer until the empty nest phase," Zigmont said.

Lend a hand early

He addresses the problem by asking people, "What's the second line of your obituary say?" That helps them to figure out what's meaningful to them, and where they should devote their time and energy.

Zigmont offered a raft of advice for childfree people, such as helping others early in life instead of waiting until you die, maintaining a cash cushion to avoid going broke, and taking out a long-term care policy in the absence of family care. He also recommended writing a will, appointing an executor, and allocating financial and medical power of attorney to ensure one's affairs are handled after death.

Shrewd planning can help those without children make the most of their freedom when young while ensuring they're set for old age and beyond.

I went to CES with Engadget for the first time this year and, among the robots, laptops, TVs and more robots, the most exciting products I saw were ones trying to make our homes more eco-friendly in the most low-effort ways possible. I saw an induction stove, a window-mounted heat pump, a battery back-up system and a few other promising appliances — these are user installable, work with standard 120V outlets and do their part in lowering a home’s carbon footprint. A couple are coming to market this year, while others are still on the road towards wide availability.

When I first thought of decarbonizing my home, solar panels on the roof immediately came to mind. So I took out a loan and did exactly that. Well, I didn’t do it — it took many months of the solar company filing permits on my behalf and two days of skilled technicians crawling all over my roof and installing complicated-looking boxes and tubes on the side of my house to get it done. Last month, my electric bill was $6, but it wasn’t a low-effort process.

In contrast, these new appliances I checked out don’t require calling a contractor for installation and you'll be able to get your hands on some of them later this year. Since there’s no installation, people who live in apartments and condos or otherwise can't permanently install appliances where they live can use them. But these products aren’t cheap. The hope is, as the popularity of accessible, user-installable green tech grows, the prices go down. In the meantime, I will keep daydreaming.

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

The first thing to really catch my eye at CES was a plug-in backup battery from BioLite, a brand I knew from making camp stoves that can recharge your phone. The Backup by BioLite is the company’s first non-outdoor item and comes in either a 1.5kWh size or a dual-unit 3kWh system. The single unit houses an inverter and a battery, while the “Complete” configuration adds an additional battery bank to the inverter/battery set. It mounts on a wall either vertically or horizontally and sticks out less than three inches so it can live behind a fridge — which a BioLite rep told me is a primary place the company sees it being used.

To use it, you plug the Backup into your wall and plug the fridge (or any other appliance) into the Backup. The battery steadily fills itself while also passing power to the appliance. If the power goes out, the battery automatically kicks on to power your icebox, sending an alert to the app to tell you about the outage. So far, this probably sounds more like power security as opposed to an eco solution, but because the app allows you to schedule the Backup to come on at a regular time, you can actually take one of your biggest energy hogs off the grid during peak usage times.

The Backup should start shipping this summer and it’s something I’m seriously considering. While I have solar panels, I didn’t pay the (considerable) upcharge to get batteries. With the Backup, I could schedule the fridge to run on battery power at night, then swap to direct power during the day while the sun feeds the roof panels and refills the battery. The dual-unit, Complete Backup configuration costs $3,000, but currently qualifies for a 30 percent tax credit due to its watt-hour size and the fact that you mount it on the wall (but I don’t think anyone is counting on that perk to still be a thing for long). Plus, if you reserve now, you'll get a 10 percent discount.

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

When I checked out the Backup at CES, I was introduced to two other companies BioLite had invited to share its booth, Copper and Gradient. Copper was showing off the Charlie plug-in induction stove. While researching indoor air quality for our air purifier guide, I learned that natural gas stoves aren’t just less-than-stellar in terms of ecological impact — they can also be pretty bad for our lungs. That prompted me to look into induction cooking, but I was worried my cotton-wrapped, nearly one-hundred-year-old copper wiring would not be up to the task of an upgrade.

Yes, all induction stoves are plug-ins — but nearly all of them require a 240V outlet, like a dryer uses. If you’re replacing a gas stove, chances are there’s a 120V outlet behind it. If you want to switch off of gas, you need to call an electrician to run the new wiring. That could be a simple operation — I’ve seen estimates online for as little as a couple hundred bucks. But if you have older wiring (that’s me) or if you’re renting or otherwise can’t upgrade your electrical, you might just be stuck with gas.

But the Copper Charlie can run on a standard outlet thanks to the (big!) 5kWh battery inside. In short, the battery fills itself when you’re not cooking. When you fire up a burner or the oven, the battery kicks in to make up the difference between what a standard outlet can supply and what the induction appliance needs. In a power outage, it can cook three to five meals.

It also looks swanky, with deep blue enamel inside the oven and reclaimed wood on the knobs and handle. The price tag is swanky too; Like the Backup, the Charlie currently qualifies for a tax credit to bring the cost as low as $4,200, but if you don’t count on that, you’ll pay around $6,000. That’s not unheard of for an induction cooker, but it's not cheap. Still, if it’s between that and never getting off gas, I’d consider it.

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

Biolite’s other booth-mate at CES, Gradient, showed off their own plug-in appliance, the Gradient All-Weather window heat pump. I’ve been curious about heat pumps after learning that heating represents the biggest energy demand for most homes. Surprisingly, cooling requires significantly less energy (though it’s often the largest electricity draw as many homes use a gas or fuel oil for heat).

Heat pumps work similarly to AC units, running a refrigerant (Gradient uses a more eco-friendly one) that travels through compression coils, absorbing and releasing heat as it moves from indoors to outdoors. To heat a home, the coils draw heat from the outdoor air (yes, even when it’s cold outside) and release the heat inside. To cool the air, the heat pump performs that process in reverse. Gradient claims a 30 percent higher efficiency over window air units. When it comes to heating, that ratio could go significantly higher, especially if it’s replacing fossil fuel combustion.

Again, no professional installation is required, any standard 120V outlet will work and it also looks far more attractive than window AC units. Instead of replacing your view with a grille and some vents, the saddle bag design hangs down on either side of a window and creates a nice shelf for plants or other bric-a-brac.

But here’s the bad news: Despite being at the Consumer Electronics Show, these window units aren’t yet available to consumers. Gradient told me they’re currently focusing on business-to-business sales to help grow the company and have a bigger impact on greenhouse emissions. But there’s still hope that a direct-to-consumer, plug-and-play heat pump will one day come to be.

Zoltux

Of course, all of this electrification is less beneficial if your area relies on non-renewable resources for grid power, so I was curious to see if any solar generation products at CES had the same user-instalable ease. One company, Zoltux, is working on a plug-in solar kit for US homes based on the “balcony solar” technology that’s popular in parts of the EU, particularly Germany.

Basically, you clamp a solar panel on a balcony, or any other sun-facing spot outside your home, and plug it into a microinverter which syncs the PV energy to the grid, allowing a standard outlet to feed power to your home. Zoltux is only in the launch phase and the company will have plenty of regulatory and technical issues to overcome in bringing plug-and-play solar kits to homes in the US, but I’m wishing them all the luck.

Jackery

As for what currently exists, companies like Jackery, Anker and EcoFlow — all of which were also at CES — have made user-friendly solar panel/portable power station combos for years. The power stations combine the battery, inverter and charge controller in one and have a simple plug for the panels which can be daisy chained to expand how much power you can generate. You can use the slew of outlets on the power stations to recharge electronics, power lights and even run small appliances. It’s not as elegant as something that feeds into your existing electrical system, but it’s one low-effort way to stir in a little solar to your power mix.

You might be surprised to learn that the first laptop with built-in solar panels is nearly 15 years old. But to me, the bigger shock is that with all the recent advancements in photovoltaic cells, manufacturers haven’t revisited this idea more often. But at MWC 2025, Lenovo is changing that with its Yoga Solar PC Concept.

Weighing 2.6 pounds and measuring less than 0.6 inches thick, the Yoga Solar PC Concept is essentially the same size as a standard 14-inch clamshell. And because its underlying design isn’t all that different from Lenovo’s standard Yoga family, it doesn’t skimp on specs either. It features an OLED display, up to 32GB of RAM, a decent-sized 50.2 WHr battery and even a 2MP IR webcam for use with Windows Hello.

However, all those components aren’t nearly as important as the solar cells embedded in its lid. Lenovo says the panels use Back Contact Cell technology so that its mounting brackets and gridlines can be placed on the rear of the cells. This allows the panels to offer up to 24 percent solar energy conversion, which is pretty good as that matches the efficiency you get from many high-end home solar systems. Furthermore, the PC also supports Dynamic Solar Tracking to automatically adjust the cells’ settings to maximize the amount of energy they can gather.

Lenovo says this means the Yoga Solar PC can generate enough juice to play an hour of videos after only 20 minutes in the sun. But what might be more impressive is that even when the laptop is indoors, it can still harvest power from as little as 0.3 watts of light to help top off its battery. Finally, to help you understand how much power it's gathering, Lenovo created a bespoke app to track how much light the panels absorb.

Unfortunately, Lenovo doesn’t have any plans to turn this concept into a full commercial device. But after playing around with it, I was pleasantly surprised to see how solid and sturdy its chassis felt. Unlike a lot of prototype devices, the Yoga Solar PC Concept doesn’t feel like that much of a stretch technologically compared to other notebooks on sale today. Its PV cells sit safely behind a sheet of glass (or possibly plastic, Lenovo wouldn’t confirm which one) while also adding a bit of distinctive visual flair.

However, the biggest hurdle (and possibly a big reason why we haven’t seen more laptops like this) is that for people who want to use solar panels to charge their devices, it’s probably easier and more versatile to rely on a standalone solar array instead of something built-in to the gadget itself. Regardless, Lenovo’s Yoga Solar PC is a surprisingly polished concept that I’d love to see get more attention in the future.

• An LA-based couple has figured out how to do day trips to Las Vegas on the cheap.
• They book $39 roundtrip tickets through Spirit Airlines and pack a backpack for the day.
• Credit card rewards and loyalty points from free apps allow them access to hotel pools and airport lounges.

Ryo Furukawa was intrigued by the Mandalay Bay pool — or, the 11-acre "aquatic playground," as the Las Vegas-based resort describes its popular amenity.

It has a wave pool and a lazy river, neither of which he'd ever experienced.

He and his fiancé, Jenn Dinh decided to make a day trip out of it. It was a bit of a tall order, considering they lived nearly 300 miles away in Los Angeles, but they managed — and, thanks to a cheap Spirit flight and a handful of travel hacks, they did it on a budget.

Since then, the couple has replicated the low-budget day trip to the entertainment capital of the world four more times. They spoke to Business Insider and broke down the cost of their typical 16-hour trip to Vegas, which they can do for less than $100 per person, not including food.

Airport parking: $30 total ($15 each)

The couple typically flies out of the John Wayne Airport (SNA) in Orange County. They drive themselves to the airport and leave their car in the lot.

Furukawa said the daily parking rate recently jumped from $20 to $30, and joked that he needs to "figure out another plan there."

Flights: $39 per person

Furukawa is a member of the Spirit Savers Club, a $70-a-year membership that offers discounts for him, the primary passenger, and up to eight additional guests on the same reservation.

"It paid for itself by just purchasing two tickets. We saved over $70 that one time," said Furukawa, who joined in the summer of 2024. For each subsequent trip, they've saved a couple of bucks.

"There's more savings when the tickets are more expensive — not as much savings when they're already cheap," he explained. But it bumps their ticket prices below $40.

Here's an example of a roundtrip flight for $38.60:

They typically depart SNA at 6:45 a.m. and arrive in LAS at 7:55 a.m. Their return trip leaves at 8:30 p.m. and arrives at 9:39 p.m. Spirit allows one personal item. They both pack a backpack.

Prices do fluctuate, said Dinh, but they've agreed on a cap: "If it's $50, we're not going to go. It has to be like 40-something or under."

Transportation in Vegas: $0 to $40 total ($20 per person)

Technically, the airport is walking distance from the Strip — and they've done the walk before.

"We only have one backpack each, so not many things to carry," said Furukawa. Though, "it's a little deceiving — probably three or four miles of walking."

While the active commute is free, and a nice option on a good-weather day, they prefer to save their legs. They've used rideshare apps and taxis — the taxi fare is set based on the part of the Strip you're heading to, making it easy to price compare with Uber and Lyft — but their favorite way to get around is by renting a car, which gives them more flexibility and the option to explore beyond the Strip.

On their most recent trip in January, they said the car cost a little under $40 for the full day — and they didn't have to top off the gas, either. They drove so few miles that, by the end of the day, "the meter was still past the full mark," said Furukawa.

Taking advantage of free activities and saving their food budget for LA

There's more to Vegas than pricey buffets, shows, and nightlife.

One of Furukawa and Dinh's favorite free activities is visiting the Conservatory at the Bellagio. It features displays that rotate seasonally. In January, they saw the Lunar New Year display; in late 2024, they experienced a holiday-themed display.

They've also explored Circus Circus, a hotel and casino (with free parking, they said) just north of the Strip that has an arcade with carnival games.

Vegas is a walkable city — particularly the Strip, which stretches a little over four miles — and they find themselves doing a lot of sightseeing on foot. They've also used the free trams that operate between Mandalay Bay and Treasure Island.

As for food, they consider themselves "spoiled" with the cuisine options in LA. They'd rather splurge on food at home and keep things simple and less expensive in Vegas. On their last trip, they spent about $20 on breakfast at a café off the Strip. They said it would have been double or even triple had they eaten on the Strip. For lunch, they spent about $30 at Taco Bell Cantina.

They're aware that buying food on the Strip can easily add up, but it doesn't hold them back from the occassional splurge.

They've done a classic Vegas buffet, which is "worth the experience if you have the time," said Furukawa. "Obviously, you want to stay there as long as you can!"

Travel hacks: Flexibility, credit card rewards, and free gambling apps

Flexibility will save your wallet. When planning their Vegas dates, Furukawa and Dinh prefer to take a day off from work and travel on a weekday. There's less traffic and fewer crowds, and it can be cheaper. They're constantly looking at Spirit flights, and if a cheap ticket aligns with a day when they can also land a free hotel room through rewards points — another hack of theirs — they'll jump on it.

In Vegas, use apps to earn free hotels, discounts, and rewards. Furukawa has discovered several apps that anyone can play for free, including POP! Slots, myVEGAS Bingo, myKONAMI, and MGM Slots Live.

Without spending any of his own money, he earns "loyalty points" for the time he spends playing, which can be redeemed for a comped room at MGM properties on select days (you still have to pay a resort fee, he said), discounted food or shows, and "Freeplay," a form of credit that allows you to play casino games.

"You can only redeem three rewards per about 30 days," he said. "I usually redeem 100,000 loyalty points for $25 myKONAMI Freeplay at three different properties. Most Freeplay on their app usually requires a minimum of a two-night stay, but this $25 Freeplay requires no stay."

On their latest trip, he said he was up $50 from Freeplay. It made the trip even more affordable.

Take advantage of credit card points and perks. One of their top hacks used to be using the Wyndham Earner Business Card, which allowed them to match earned Wyndham status to Caesars Rewards, which got them free parking and a waived resort fee. The Points Guy was also a fan of this perk, which is no longer effective as of January 31, 2025.

On their most recent trip in January, the couple booked a comped room based on their play. Thanks to their Caesars Diamond status, which was still effective at the time, they could park their rental car at Caesars for free and didn't owe the $54.95 resort fee. It allowed them a place to store their backpacks and leave the car for the day.

Another credit card benefit they have is Priority Pass, which grants them access to lounges in various airports, including the one in Vegas. They like to arrive at the airport early enough to get a free meal at the lounge before heading back to LA.

They said they're looking forward to the Capital One Lounge coming to the LAS soon.

The couple hasn't selected their next Vegas date yet, but at this point, the planning is minimal. "We just copy and paste," said Furukawa. "I pick her up, we go to the airport, park my car, and then get on the flight with our one backpack. It's a nice escape."

• Carmelo Camilleri credits his financial success to money lessons from his father.
• His father emphasized the importance of owning rather than renting and letting your money grow.
• The lessons helped Camilleri become a homeowner at 27 and are setting him up to retire early.

Carmelo Camilleri will never forget the time his dad yelled at him for buying Diet Pepsi at Walmart when it was on sale at ShopRite.

He and his fiancé were preparing to host his parents when they realized that they had forgotten to get soda the night before. They swung by the nearest grocery option, which happened to be Walmart, and word of the detour got back to Camilleri's dad.

"He actually yelled at me. He said, 'What's wrong with you? It's on sale at ShopRite,'" the Staten Island native told Business Insider. "I said, 'I know. You were on your way, and we were going to be late.' He goes, 'You could have gone there. We would've waited for you. It's OK. Get the cheaper price.'"

Camilleri says his dad is the reason he price-compares everything from gas to ground turkey — and his personal finance lessons are the reason the 31-year-old is a homeowner with robust savings and financial options.

"My goal is to have the option to retire at 35," said Camilleri, who has been working as a salesman since college and now runs a sales business. The path to early retirement would mean selling the business, he added, "so if and when that happens, I'll definitely have the opportunity to move on with my life."

Here are two money lessons from his dad that "put me in the right mindset," said Camilleri.

'Always own. Never rent.'

Camilleri lived at home with his parents for years after college, partly thanks to an early principle that his dad instilled in him: "Always own. Never rent."

In his mind, renting equates to throwing money away.

"You put a dollar in, that dollar is gone forever," said Camilleri. "When you're renting, you're building someone else's dream. You're building someone else's asset."

Living at home not only allowed him to save the majority of his sales income, which would eventually go toward a six-figure down payment, but it also meant he could be patient and diligent during the homebuying process.

"I was always going to buy a home. It was just a matter of when — not if," said Camilleri, who started seriously considering buying in 2020 and closed on a $670,000 five-bedroom in Brick, New Jersey in 2021. He paid $25,000 under the original asking price during a time when most homes in the area were going for above asking, he said.

"I probably spent a little over a full year looking. There were times when I would just stop, like two or three months at a time, because I wasn't getting anywhere — and I wasn't going to overpay," he said. "I wasn't willing to spend more than I would need to, and it's not that I financially couldn't do it — it's just not smart. I'm always looking for my money to grow, not the other way around."

Camilleri, who moved out of his parent's home and into his own at age 27, is proud to say, "I never paid a dollar of rent my entire life."

'Keep investing your money. Keep letting it grow.'

Camilleri didn't fully grasp his dad's second main money lesson — "Keep investing your money, keep letting it grow" — until he earned money for the first time.

He was 19, had just finished his freshman year of college, and landed a summer gig as a sales rep. In a two-month span, he made about $7,000 selling Cutco knives.

"At the time, I thought I was rich," he said. But before he had a chance to touch it, "The first thing my father said to me was, 'Don't spend it. Put it away.' And I said, 'What do you mean? I have this money. I should be able to use it.'"

His dad responded by teaching him about what happens when you overspend, accumulate debt, and incur interest. Rather than having compound interest work against him, he could take advantage of the phenomenon by investing his money, which he's been doing ever since. Most of his invested money is in the stock market, he said: "Obviously, nothing's guaranteed in life, but when you're investing in companies like Apple and Google, and using ETFs, these are long-term plays that are pretty much always going to pan out."

Camilleri, who refuses to pay for cable and subscriptions, buys ground turkey in bulk, and price compares gas using an app called GasBuddy, hesitates before agreeing that he's "frugal." At this point, his habits are ingrained.

"This is how I live my life. I get the best deals on everything, and I never buy at the first price. I'm always trying to negotiate. I'm always looking to get the best price I possibly could," he said.

His friends and fiancé say they don't think they could live like he does. They tease him about not being human. His response is that anyone can save and invest like he does and achieve financial independence.

"I am a human. I'm no better. I don't have superpowers," he said. "I just have a different mindset."

• Dexter Zhuang achieved Coast FIRE by increasing income and reducing expenses.
• Moving to countries with a lower cost of living increased his savings rate.
• He believes that anyone can use a form of 'geo-arbitrage' to keep more of their income.

Dexter Zhuang achieved what's known as "Coast FIRE" — an offshoot of the Financial Independence, Retire Early movement that means he no longer has to add to his retirement savings — with a simple, two-pronged approach: increasing income and reducing expenses.

He negotiated raises throughout his tech career and experimented with a variety of side hustles.

As for the reducing expenses component, "geo-arbitrage" helped. This strategy, which became increasingly popular during the pandemic when remote work allowed employees to essentially work from anywhere, involves earning an income from a higher-payer country while living in a lower-cost country.

Zhuang, 33, started his career in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the US, where he worked as a product manager for Dropbox and growth-stage startups. He quit in 2019 to travel the world and experiment with the digital nomad lifestyle. It was his first taste of geo-arbitrage — he was doing remote consulting, charging the hourly rate he earned from his employer in the States while living in less expensive places throughout Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

In 2020, he moved to Singapore to work at a regional fintech startup. He explained that, while he was earning a lower salary in Singapore than he would have earned for a comparable role in the States, he ended up being net positive due to a lower cost of living and lower taxes.

In San Francisco in 2018, "my average expenses were about $6,422 per month," he told Business Insider. "Fast-forward to Singapore in 2022, my total monthly expenses were $4,945, on average, in terms of the USD."

These numbers don't take into account inflation, he noted: "If you adjusted for inflation, the San Francisco expenses would be even higher." As for taxes, "that was also lower for me in Singapore than in San Francisco, in terms of my effective tax rate."

Even though he was earning a smaller base salary, the cost-of-living difference allowed him to save and invest more of his total income and, ultimately, hit his Coast FIRE number sooner than he would have if he were still living in the Bay Area. Zhuang prefers not to share his exact net worth, but BI confirmed that he has accumulated six figures by looking at screenshots of his savings and investment accounts.

As of 2025, his cost of living is even lower. He and his wife moved to Mexico City in 2024, and their average monthly expenses are about $3,500, he said. His income is also less — he left the Singapore startup in 2023 after growing his side hustles to the point where they were bringing in full-time income — but has more flexibility and feels less pressure to earn a certain amount now that he can coast into retirement with his current portfolio.

How anyone can use geo-arbitrage to fast-track their financial goals

There are a variety of geo-arbitrage strategies anyone with flexible work can use to save more, said Zhuang.

He relocated from a higher-cost-of-living country to a lower-cost-of-living country but pointed out that it's possible to relocate domestically — either to a less expensive city or even a more affordable neighborhood within your same city.

"It's good for most people, especially families with kids, who would find a global move to be disruptive," Zhuang wrote in his newsletter Money Abroad.

Another option is working remotely for a global employer that offers competitive salaries regardless of an employee's location.

"As a hiring manager in the Asia tech industry, I saw wildly different salary ranges for people who were hired in Singapore (mature market) vs places like Indonesia (emerging market)," he wrote, adding: "To plug the gap, I've seen high-performing tech workers successfully petition their global companies to benchmark their salary based on the more competitive market (e.g. instead of benchmarking to Malaysia, use Singapore)."

Keep in mind that "the global tech talent market is still inefficient. If you're a top performer in an emerging market, look for companies that do benchmark their salaries globally."

• BI spoke to 4 older Americans who retired comfortably with over $1 million in assets.
• Dozens of older Americans said they still maintain frugal habits despite having significant wealth.
• Still, some retirees said they regretted how they balanced saving too much with enjoying life.

Brian Loffredo, 68, still does his own yard work and watches his grocery spending despite having millions in the bank.

Loffredo, who lives in Connecticut, worked in retail management for decades but said finances were tight early in his career while raising four stepchildren. He recalled winters where he could "see the breath coming out of our mouths" because he couldn't afford heat.

As he navigated higher-paying jobs, including management roles where he worked 50 to 70 hours a week, he learned how to do home improvements himself to save money. In addition to smart investments and staying at one company for 26 years, these strategies helped him grow his wealth during difficult times — and he plans to keep them.

"You do what you have to do, you learn to do it yourself, and you can get it done," Loffredo said. "In the meantime, you're saving money that allows you to buy presents for the kids."

Loffredo could be seen as an example of a "millionaire next door," as described in a classic 1996 finance book. Many wealthier Americans live in middle-class areas and achieve their wealth through careful planning and investing instead of risky business moves or very high-paying jobs.

We want to hear from you. Are you an older American who thought you retired well? Do you have any life regrets that you would be comfortable sharing with a reporter? Please fill out this quick form.

For many Americans like Loffredo, more money doesn't necessarily mean a drastic lifestyle shift. Business Insider heard from dozens of older Americans who retired comfortably but still remain frugal. Some older Americans told BI they're working while enjoying seven-figure net worths, whether for financial security or simply having something to do.

Some regretted over-saving and not enjoying their money when they were younger, but most said they would change little about their retirement strategies and believe they would not be who they are without making these sacrifices.

Loffredo hadn't thought seriously about investment strategies until 2000, a few years after his wife died. He watched financial cable news channels and read about diversifying his portfolio. He took $100,000 of his savings and day-traded it before taking the buy-and-hold approach.

After searching for areas with less costly real estate, he sold his 2,200-square-foot house for a 3,500-square-foot home that cost only $10,000 more. Despite a demotion from a six-figure income to about $60,000, his investments, including his 401(k) and IRA accounts, continued to grow.

"I could have bought a house for a million and a half, and my investments have made some money," Loffredo said. "I don't believe in wasting that kind of money, and every house you get that is more valuable costs you more to maintain it."

Loffredo retired in April 2021 and volunteers in the community. He recently splurged on a Corvette, though he continues living frugally in other aspects. He still sometimes waits until he has a coupon to get new clothes.

"Before you spend money, think about what that money could have earned if you hadn't spent it," Loffredo said. "Whether it's a frivolous vacation or a fancier car, is that more important to you than what that extra money might have earned?"

A magazine article sparked a financial awakening

Ken Curell, 73, recalls reading an article from a financial magazine decades ago arguing that people save money before spending it. Curell said except for wishing he had invested more in Roth IRAs, his retirement planning strategies worked well.

The Ohio resident served in the Air Force for over three decades. During this time, he married his wife and raised two children. He left active duty to fly for airlines until his retirement in 2012, and he taught his children how to fly planes.

"Angry perseverance for me was the impetus, the fuel, the ignition source for not giving up on flight and doggedly pursuing an avenue where I wanted to go," Curell said.

Curell said one of his major regrets was devoting too many hours to work. "My employers conditioned me to the idea of more time spent in the office and after-work-hours attention to work-related actions made me the better employee," Curell said.

Many older Americans who told BI they retired well wished they had worked less. In December, BI released a series on older Americans' retirement regrets, and a common theme was over-saving — being too frugal or putting in long hours without vacations.

Curell read extensively about retirement planning, investing in stocks, bonds, low-cost funds, and IRAs that have grown to seven figures. He said his portfolio is about 70% stocks and 30% bonds. In the early 2000s, amid pay cuts for pilots, he said he cut coupons and cut back on unnecessary expenses. He and his wife of 46 years, also an Air Force veteran, receive annuities that have made retirement planning less stressful.

"The first rule of thumb is to check your emotions at the door when you start dealing with your finances, making it purely about the numbers," Curell said.

Working too hard but celebrating the little things

Deborah Hrustich, 69, has rediscovered herself in retirement.

Hrustich, who lives outside Albany, worked 5 a.m. shifts as a neurosurgeon so she'd finish early enough to attend her three children's activities. She spent years sleeping five hours a night, working until she was 61.

Hrustich said she had few regrets about her spending, as she spent a lot on her children's activities but cut back on cars, clothes, and her home. She and her husband spent her money and saved his — they took extensive trips, bought Super Bowl and World Series tickets, and paid off their mortgage early.

They hired an accountant to manage their money, as she said neither of them knew how to properly invest. She said they had saved enough money to live until 100 and be financially stable.

"I don't think young people at 35 understand that you have to have money to retire, that you can't live on Social Security, but you want to balance that with fun times," Hrustich said. "If you dream of taking a trip somewhere, take it."

However, with millions saved for retirement, she said it took a few years to fully enjoy it. Her husband died suddenly three years ago, putting her retirement plans in flux. She also wished she would have taken more time for herself earlier in life.

"I never ate the last piece of cake," Hrustich said. "I always put the needs and wants of everyone else first."

She said it took two years after her husband's death to rebuild her life and surround herself with people who share her values. Hrustich volunteers as a caregiver for Alzheimer's patients and as a tutor, and she hopes to continue traveling.

Careful saving, tragedy in retirement, and bouncing back

Karen Jones, 69, didn't have stable work or actively save until her 30s. She worked as a customs broker while her husband stayed home with their children, and she started a customs brokerage and forwarding firm in Boise at 44.

"We were in our late 30s before we even thought of or cared about retirement, and we had a lot to make up," Jones said. "We maxed out our 401(k). If we had to make payments for two years for a couch, we didn't buy it."

She ran her company for 16 years, working long hours and saving much of her earnings. She and her husband stayed in the same house for 25 years, drove their cars for over 20 years, and bought a camper in cash. She planned to find a buyer for the firm after 10 years, but she ran it until she was 61 and retired at 64. She sold her company for about $700,000, including the payout for three additional years, and paid off her house and other debts.

"We were the only customs broker for a long time in Boise, but I treated my customers like there were a million of us around," Jones said.

Three days after her retirement, while preparing for a camping trip, her husband had a heart attack and never fully recovered. She spent two and a half years as his caregiver until he died, and she regretted not taking more time off while working to go on trips with family.

Jones teaches college courses, takes piano lessons, tends to her garden, and travels frequently. She earns about $5,000 a month from Social Security and investments and plans to move to Madrid.

"My finance guy keeps telling me to spend more," Jones said. "People save all their lives, and then they can spend it, but they don't know what to spend it on. Still, I don't think I have to worry about money."

Building a working nuclear fusion reactor has proven to be a daunting challenge even for multiple wealthy nations, as we've seen with the much-delayed ITER project. However, a private start-up called Helion thinks it can build one and start supplying energy by 2028 by taking a different approach than other reactors. 

Founded in 2013, Helion is in the news thanks to a $425 million funding round, backed by billionaires like Sam Altman and Peter Thiel. With more than $1 billion raised, the company is now valued at $5.4 billion.

Nuclear fusion, which combines hydrogen atoms to form helium, is the holy grail for green energy. It's carbon free, and unlike current nuclear plants, produces no long-term radioactive waste. At the same time, reactors could produce enough electricity to power small cities.

Sustained fusion reaction that produces more energy that it consumes has never happened, though. The largest project, ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), is projected to cost up to $22 billion and won't go online until at least 2034 — and still hasn't produced a sustained reaction. The longest fusion reaction is 1,066 seconds (17 minutes and 43 seconds), set just recently by the EAST reactor in China. 

So how does Helion think it can succeed? Most experimental reactors compress plasma using magnetic or inertial confinement, which heats it enough to spark a fusion reaction. Once that happens, the fusion-generated heat powers a steam turbine to generate electricity. 

Helion is using a different approach by dispensing with the steam turbine. Fuel (deuterium and helium-3) is injected into both ends of the hourglass shaped reactor, then heated to form a plasma. Magnets form the plasma into a donut shape and fire them at each other at speeds up to 1 million MPH. They collide in the narrow middle section of the reactor and are further compressed by magnets there. That heats them up to the magic 100 million degrees Celcius, creating fusion. 

"As the plasma expands, it pushes back on the magnetic field from the machine's magnets," Helion explains on its website. "By Faraday's Law, the change in field induces current, which is directly recaptured as electricity, allowing Helion's fusion generator to skip the steam cycle." 

This system is simpler and potentially more efficient than a steam turbine. However, while the company has achieved fast enough pulse rates to achieve fusion, it has only done so on a small scale to date. "There [are] some big engineering challenges to get to those high repetition rates at the kind of big pulse powers where we talk about millions of amps," CEO David Kirtley told TechCrunch.

And that's the rub with every other reactor. Fusion produces a huge surge of energy all at once and so far no one has been able to control and harness that. Helion thinks its simpler system will help, but has yet to prove it can do it experimentally, let alone commercially. Still, the company says its seventh-generation reactor, Polaris, is now "in operation" but has declined to share any results to date. 

• Some people are embracing "low-buy year" to curb their consumerism and slash their debt.
• After an era of doom spending, many are tired of being strapped for cash.
• They say capsule closets, Vinted sales, and "Project Pan" promote mindful consumption.

Some people are getting serious about curbing their consumerism and needless spending by committing to a "low-buy year."

While "doom-spending" was a tactic some used to make them feel better about the economy and geopolitical issues in post-pandemic 2023, it looks like that era is over.

Now, what's hot are capsule closets and "Project Pan" — just two of the methods heralded as ways to save rather than spend during a low or no-buy year and help people develop a more mindful approach to consumption.

Elysia Berman, who documented her journey out of $48,000 worth of debt on social media, told Business Insider that the trend may be related to people tiring of the "pressure to keep up."

"I think people are feeling a bit burned out," says the New Yorker.

There's a cost-of-living crisis, and while spending mindlessly was fun for a while, people are sick of being broke and owing thousands to credit-card providers and buy-now-pay-later apps.

"They're tired of being sold to and taken advantage of," Berman added. "People don't want to be defined by their possessions anymore."

The reality of micro-trends

Debt and personal finance have become huge on social media, particularly TikTok, in the past couple of years. There, you can find raw and candid conversations about salaries, savings, debt, and ways forward.

Ellen Robinson, who lives in London, noticed that the number of beauty products and clothes she'd been purchasing had been steadily creeping up in the past few years due to services like TikTok shop.

Rather than actually wanting the items she was adding to her cart, she was getting a rush from what that stuff represented.

"I was sort of buying into things because I wanted the lifestyle that thing portrayed in my head rather than the thing itself," Robinson told BI.

Black Friday in November was a turning point for her because all the discounts felt "really in your face." She's also grown skeptical about the latest fashion micro-trends that disappear from social media feeds as quickly as they emerge.

"I feel like everybody's now become more aware of how fast the trend cycles are moving," she said. "Every couple of weeks, we're like, it's now the fisherman trend, it's now the cute cat trend, or whatever, and I think people are just exhausted by it."

Although she's always been interested in sustainability, Robinson has stepped up her efforts and plans to purchase just 12 items in 2025. "Rather than not buying anything at all, I'm being a little bit more considered and buying myself one piece a month that fits into my wardrobe in a variety of different ways."

The 'one in, one out' rule

Mia McGrath told BI that her low-buy year is about "becoming conscious about what I consume."

The Londoner works in fashion, which means she's under added pressure to look on-trend. However, she's unsubscribed from the brands she likes and no longer receives tempting messages about their latest offers.

McGrath also follows the "one in, one out" rule and will only buy something new after getting rid of something else. She recently purchased a cashmere sweater, but only after she sold five items on Vinted.

To help others stick to their rules, McGrath recommends finding non-material things to consume, such as audiobooks or experiences with friends. "Maybe it's traveling more or something that's intangible that still means a lot to you — and reconnecting with that side of you that didn't always see shopping as your only form of fun."

Marika Thurlow, who is UK-based, is sharing her weekly purchases on TikTok to keep her accountable.

Rather than immediately make purchases, she now screenshots them and then comes back to them a week or so later.

More often than not, the urge to buy has disappeared. "It's funny how your brain works. You just forget about things," Thurlow told BI.

Rewiring the dopamine hit

Rashi Grover, who lives in Ontario, Canada, became wise to the realities of the dopamine hit from buying new makeup or clothing because it wouldn't last.

"We click add to cart, and then for a few days, we're excited about our order," she said. "Then, as soon as it arrives, we play with it for maybe 30 minutes, and then that's it, done."

Growing up watching content on platforms like YouTube, Grover said she and many of her peers thought it was normal to aspire to have huge collections of makeup and clothes like the influencers they looked up to.

Now a little older and saving for a house, Grover realized she needed to stop. The fast-fashion hauls that were so popular during the pandemic now feel so wasteful, she said.

"I bought so much junk off Shein. A couple of months ago, I was going through my closet, and I was just so ashamed of myself."

Instead of being tempted by makeup, Grover has been participating in "Project Pan," which forbids buying more beauty products before finishing those you have already.

"It's learning and distinguishing between a want and a need," she said. "Do I really need this, or should I just be satisfied with what I have?"

Future you will thank you

Getting into debt is easy. Everything is "stacked against us" in this regard, according to Amos Nadler, the founder of Prof of Wall Street, who holds a doctorate in behavioral finance and neuroeconomics.

"It's a battle to stay on the straight and narrow," he told BI, especially with relentless marketing and something called "present bias."

Our brains have evolved to heavily discount the importance of things the further away they are. That's why it's much more appealing to buy something right now rather than abstain for several months to get yourself out of debt.

Yet it's possible to develop an appetite for saving rather than spending, Nadler said. Rules such as a "low-buy year" are a good place to start.

When Berman spoke with BI, she had just learned she had been laid off. But she was thankful she had started taking her finances seriously and has paid off more than $35,000. A year ago, "it would've been a totally different story."

"These little financial lessons, they compound over time," said Berman, who recommends a low-buy year to everyone — not just those in debt. "Future you will be grateful to past you for reining it in."

It's always gratifying when something promised at CES actually comes to market. That's the case with the Pebble Flow electric trailer that my colleague Sam Rutherford checked out last year's CES. I was able to see the final draft on the show floor this week and was adequately impressed. Like the (four!) other sustainable, electrified tiny homes we saw this year, it was shiny and luxe and decked out in wood tones, glass, metal and white polymers. 

The main features that drew us to the Flow last year remain intact: sleeping for four, a 45 kWh battery and a 1.1 kW solar panel, full kitchen and bath, a queen-size Murphy bed that transforms into a shared working space and a convertible dinette at the other end. The kitchen faucet even spins 180-degrees and out the window to let you do some washing up outside. 

The option for the Magic Pack add-on is still here. For an upcharge, it allows the Flow to self-park, automatically hitch itself and provide it's own propulsion from dual motors so it's not such a drag (literally) on the vehicle that's towing it. 

One of the coolest features is still the glass separating the bathroom from the rest of the cabin. At the push of a button it goes from clear to opaque so you can have some privacy without having to kick your entire family out of the trailer. 

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

As for what's new, those changes were partly sourced from prospective customers. One directive was "more windows," so a skylight was added, along with a larger window at the back. The cupboards are now easier to access by flipping up instead of down. And the overall shape was refined to be more aerodynamic. 

Walking around in the Flow, everything felt soothing and clean. The bed was so plush I wanted to melt into it. The seating area was inviting and spacious. It was tough to leave this homey pod (especially considering how stupendously hard it is to just find a place to sit down at CES). I don't have a vehicle that can pull a trailer, but I would love to park one of these in my backyard. Even if I never took it on the road, I'd happily hang out in its well-appointed comfort and even (reluctantly) give it up to guests when they visited.

Production on the Flow will begin early this year and shipping is scheduled for spring. The option without the motor assist and self-parking features will go for $109,500. If you want the Magic Pack package, that brings your price to $135,500. There's also a "Founders Edition" with a limited-edition color scheme and a few more upgrades going for $175,000.

The "AC" in AC Future stands for Amy and Cindy, founder Arthur Qin's two daughters. That's just one of the bits of info I gained at the company's CES event in which we got a first look at the new AC Future Ai-TH transformable home. This is yet another nattily appointed answer to the housing crisis we've seen on the 2025 show floor. It comes in three models: a deliverable pod (Ai-THu), a pullable trailer (Ai-THt) and a road-ready EV RV (Ai-THd). Press and prospective buyers got to tour the EV prototype this week (but we had to take our shoes off first). 

Amy Skorheim / Engadget

Thanks to pull-out sections at the rear and both sides, the bus-sized RV transforms into a 400-square-foot, one bed, one bath apartment, complete with a living room, kitchen with full-sized fridge, two burner induction range and microwave, along with an uncramped stall shower and washer/dryer in the bathroom. The full HVAC system, paired with high-efficiency insulation keeps the unit temperate. 

All that amounts to one heck of a power draw, which AC Future answers with a roof covered in solar panels. I was told all three models of the Ai-TH can generate around 25 kWh of energy in a day. For reference, the average American house uses around 30 kWh daily. The home can also be plugged in if sunlight isn't enough, and there was talk of wind-generation options for customers in cloudy climates. 

All models of the Ai-TH will also come equipped with atmospheric water generation that can suck between 13 and 15 gallons of water per day out of thin air. That's much less than the 200 or so gallons American houses use for non-landscaping needs, so the Ai-TH also recycles gray water and, of course, has a holding tank. In theory, these units can act as fully self-sustaining living pods, gathering what's needed from the world around them. 

Because this is CES 2025, where the unofficial motto is "Stick some AI in it!" there's a whole-home proprietary AI assistant called Futura to turn on your lights, manage your resources and handle other management tasks. There was even a demo set up outside the RV letting people "meet" "her."

At last year’s CES, AC Future, barely two years old at the time, showed off the idea for the Ai-TH. The fully equipped prototype we saw was built in collaboration with Hydra, an automotive design and prototyping studio out of Southern California. Models that go into production will have components coming from a huge range of suppliers; I was told there are three partners lined up for the EV motors alone. 

AC Future says this is “aimed at addressing the affordable, sustainable and mobile housing crisis worldwide.” And any talk of addressing the housing crisis has to include some discussion of price, unless we're counting on some trickle-down economics-style solutions. The static base model will start at $98,000, the trailer model will go for $138,000 and up and the drivable version starts at $298,000. 

AC Future's COO told me production would begin as soon as they left Vegas (the whole team was at CES) and reservations are open now. 

"I wish I saved more for retirement." "I regret taking Social Security too early." "I should have had better health insurance." "I would tell my younger self to take that vacation."

These are among the common regrets described by the more than 3,800 older Americans who since mid-September have responded to Business Insider's informal, nonrepresentative surveys and emailed reporters. Reporters wrote 17 stories, including four in-depth profiles, and created a video detailing six Americans' regrets.

By mid-October, more than 1,000 people had completed the initial survey; that figure grew to more than 1,700 by the end of November. Now the survey has over 2,500 responses. By December, reporters had received roughly 1,000 emails in response to the coverage. We also used more than 300 responses from a survey that asked people over 50 about their regrets as they struggled to find work and interviewed more than 100 older Americans as well as financial planners and retirement researchers.

_{Article credits
Reporters: Noah Sheidlower, Allie Kelly
Editors: Bartie Scott, Emily Canal, Andy Kiersz, Jamie Heller
Copy Editors: Jonann Brady, Emma LeGault, Nick Siwek, Kevin Kaplan
Design and Art: Jenny Chang-Rodriguez, Rebecca Zisser, Isabel Fernandez-Pujol, Derek French, Natalie Ammari, Bryan Erickson
Photographers: Laura McDermott, Rita Harper, Saul Martinez
Video credits
Producers: Sarah Andersen, Barbara Corbellini Duarte
Reporters: Noah Sheidlower, Allie Kelly
Videographers: Brian Hansen, Clancy Morgan, Austin Meyer, Gregory Neiser
Video Editors: Mark Adam Miller, Karim Islam
Motion Designer: Dorian Barranco
Copy Editors: Mark Abadi, Marisa Frey
Deputy Executive Producer: Havovi Cooper
Executive Producer: Barbara Corbellini Duarte
Head of Video: Erica Berenstein}

• At first, my financial habits clashed with my husbands. He prioritized saving over spending.
• He was able to retired at 40 by making smart choices and enjoying a modest lifestyle.
• Now that he's gone, I'm teaching our sons his financial strategies so they can live comfortable lives.

One of the first disagreements my husband and I ever had was over a pair of boots. They were creamy cocoa, knee-high suede, with a slender heel. I told him they were half-off the original $700.

"You spent three hundred and fifty dollars on a pair of shoes?" he asked, aghast.

It spiraled into a tedious argument, and I said what you should never say in any financial quarrel: "I spent my own money."

"That's not the point," my husband retorted. "When we have kids, we must be united on what we prioritize."

He was the saver, I was the spender.

After decades in sales, my husband was able to retire at 40, several years before we met. People assumed he'd had some stroke of fortune and that he now spent his time playing golf or buying art. But there was nothing glamorous about his choice. Long ago he'd calculated the passive income needed to support a modest lifestyle and stopped working once he hit that number. It was enough for a single man with limited expenses. Once I entered the picture, I kept working.

He was set in his ways

Over the years, I slowly absorbed his frugal habits. He scrutinized every credit card bill and regularly renegotiated cable and insurance rates. He drove the same car for 18 years. He only owned two pairs of shoes at any time. He bought his clothes at Goodwill — and he did that only on Tuesdays when seniors got 10% off. He railed against consumerism, fast-forwarding through commercials and firmly believing that most people need only a fraction of what corporate America tries to sell them.

Adjusting to his mindset wasn't easy. I'd been a fashion editor, where a designer wardrobe was part of the job. I loved luxury hotels, roomy airline seats, and instant solutions — like buying a new dining set when a chair broke. (My husband would simply pull a spare chair from the garage, unconcerned that it didn't match.)

He wanted to teach our kids to be savers

After our sons were born, my husband opened custodial accounts, bought them piggy banks, and read them illustrated books about saving.

While thrifty, he was never cheap — especially when it came to his family. He bought organic berries and antibiotic-free chicken. When our older son showed promise on the piano, my husband enrolled him in $200-an-hour master classes. (Now 23, that son is a professional pianist and composer with millions of TikTok views.) When our younger son became fascinated with aviation, my husband booked discovery flights and invested in remote-controlled airplanes. (At 19, he's now a flight instructor.) Fundamentally, my husband believed money should support a sterling interior life — physical well-being, emotional wholeness, a refined intellect — not "flash and fripperies," as he'd say.

Now I'm carrying on his lessons

My husband passed away from a heart attack during COVID. In the lockdown, my career as a freelance writer languished. The boys were entering periods in their lives when we had to think about college, cars, and the hellish landscape that is auto insurance for young drivers. My husband had always believed in saving for a rainy day and in his passing, we were in the middle of a downpour.

Luckily, our sons have their father's mindset. They shop on eBay, and live at home to "stack cash." I opened brokerage accounts for them. They have yet to embrace a long-term view, rolling their eyes when I explain compound interest and what they could save by 40. "We'll probably be living in a post-apocalyptic world anyway," they say.

"Be that as it may," I reply, "just stash a few dollars a day and see what happens. It's what your dad did."

For me now, saving is the new spending. When I recently needed a winter coat, I drove past the alluring store windows, and straight to Goodwill. And, in my husband's honor, I waited till Tuesday.

The offers and details on this page may have updated or changed since the time of publication. See our article on Business Insider for current information.

• The average American expects to spend over $2,000 on holiday costs this season, one survey found.
• Some respondents predicted they would be paying off the debts they accrue into May next year.
• Personal finance guru Dave Ramsey advised saving before the holidays and setting a strict budget.

The most wonderful time of the year often comes with a hefty price tag — and many people expect to be paying for it into next summer.

People's debt balloons "because they don't plan for Christmas, like it sneaks up on them, like they move it or something," personal finance guru Dave Ramsey told "Fox & Friends" last week.

Ramsey's comments were in response to a survey showing that the average American will spend over $2,000 on holiday-related expenses this season, including travel, gifts, food, and clothes.

The survey of 2,000 people was conducted in early November by Talker Research and commissioned by Achieve. A fifth of respondents said they likely wouldn't recover financially until May 2025 or later.

The personal finance guru and host of "The Ramsey Show" described the $2,000 figure as "mindblowing," adding that it was a large sum to spend "all in the name of happiness comes from stuff — and it doesn't."

People can stay out of money trouble by socking away funds each month in preparation for the winter splurge, Ramsey said. They can also avoid overspending by drawing up a budget for gifts and other costs and sticking to it, he added.

"The problem with Christmas is not that we enjoy buying gifts for someone else — that's a wonderful thing," the radio personality said.

"The problem is we impulse our butts off, and we double up what we spend," he continued, pointing the finger at retailers who are "great at putting stuff in front of us that we hadn't planned to buy."

The typical US adult expects to spend $1,012 on gifts alone this holiday season, up from an estimated $975 last year, according to a Gallup survey of at least 1,000 people conducted in November.

Pinched by prices

Household budgets could be squeezed this holiday season. Inflation surged to a 40-year high of over 9% in the summer of 2022 as the cost of food, fuel, housing, and other essentials jumped, and remained above the Federal Reserve's target rate of 2% in November.

The central bank rushed to curb price growth by hiking interest rates from nearly zero to north of 5% within 18 months, sending people's monthly payments for their credit cards, car loans, and other debts skyward. Fed officials have cut rates to roughly 4% since September, but recently indicated they only expect to make two further cuts next year.

The upshot is Americans are likely to face a combination of elevated inflation and steeper rates for a while yet, setting the stage for a costly Christmas.

• A secretary bought three shares of her company's stock for $60 each in 1935.
• Grace Groner reinvested her dividends for 75 years, and her stake ballooned to $7.2 million.
• Her employer, Abbott, shared Groner's story in a recent website post.

A secretary paid $180 in 1935 for three shares of her employer's stock. By the time she died in 2010, her investment had mushroomed to $7.2 million.

Abbott, a pharmaceutical company, gave a shout-out to the former employee in a recent post on its website.

"As we celebrate 101 years of dividend payouts, we're remembering one of the earliest Abbott investing success stories, that of Grace Groner, who worked as a secretary at Abbott for over 40 years," the post reads.

"In 1935, Groner bought three shares of Abbott stock for $60 each. She consistently reinvested her dividend payments and quietly amassed a $7.2 million fortune. Groner passed away in 2010, at the age of 100, and it was only then that her multimillion-dollar estate was discovered."

She gifted her entire fortune to a foundation she'd established in support of her alma mater, Lake Forest College. She earmarked the money to finance internships, international study, and service projects for students.

Groner hung onto her Abbott shares for over 75 years without selling a single one, despite several stock splits, and used her dividends to bolster her stake.

She was likely able to leave her nest egg intact for so long because of her simple lifestyle. She lived in a one-bedroom house, bought her clothes at rummage sales, and didn't own a car, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2010.

Her shares would be worth north of $28 million today, excluding dividends, given that Abbott's stock price has roughly quadrupled since 2010. The drugmaker's market value has risen to around $200 billion, meaning it now rivals Disney, PepsiCo, and Morgan Stanley in size.

• A financial guru has criticized strict budgets, advocating for intuitive spending instead.
• Budget culture is seen as restrictive, leading to potential "budget burnout."
• Experts suggest balancing intuitive spending with realistic budgeting for financial health.

Saving money and paying off debts can feel like an endless cycle, which is why financial gurus are so keen on budgeting.

But Dana Miranda, a certified personal finance educator, told CNBC Make It in a recent interview that strict spending plans can be "toxic."

Miranda, who is also the author of "You Don't Need a Budget," told the outlet that budget culture is based on "restriction, shame, and greed," and there's little concrete evidence it works in the long term.

Instead, she recommended "intuitive spending" and thinking about your money "moment by moment." Rather than punishing themselves for overspending, people should reward themselves when they save, Miranda said.

Not all financial pros are in agreement, though.

Katrin Kaurov, the CEO and cofounder of the social financial platform Frich, told Business Insider it's true that "everyone hates budgeting."

But she isn't convinced intuitive spending is a good alternative. For some, it can increase debt and result in purchases they don't need.

To budget or not to budget

Doug Carey, a chartered financial analyst and founder of the retirement and financial planning software WealthTrace, told BI that whether to budget is a question that comes up with many of his clients.

Generally, he said he disagrees that people must have a set budget and stick to it. As long as someone can max out their 401(k) contributions and save enough for emergencies, "they can use their intuition for spending."

For these people, it is pretty obvious when they are spending too much, Carey said, because they'll dip into savings.

Budgets can be too limiting for people who are more flexible in their income, such as freelancers or contractors, for example, because these systems don't often allow for easy changes.

Carey said the "micromanagement" of daily things can also "obscure the bigger picture of your financial health," such as long-term financial goals such as retirement savings or building wealth.

"This can create a negative association with managing money and lead to 'budget burnout,'" Carey said. "Many give up on budgeting when they feel like they cannot live within the strict limits of the budget."

Trial and error

Budgets can be more universally helpful if they make room for flexibility.

Kaurov told BI that budgeting isn't inherently toxic, "but many people create budgets with too much enthusiasm and optimism for how little money they will spend from month to month."

People spend more during the holidays, for example. So using December's budget in January probably won't work.

Kaurov said a budget should be about creating a realistic guideline for spending and saving. If you've set one you can't follow, you should rethink it, she said.

"Budgeting is a tricky — but important — skill for people to learn when they're starting to manage their money," she said. "Trial and error is crucial and will allow people to find what kind of budget works best for them."

The grass isn't always greener

Intuitive spending sounds like a good idea, but it may be a case of "the grass is always greener," Kaurov added.

"For so many, especially younger people who are often on a tighter budget anyway, it's a really poor financial habit to develop," she said.

For those who are partial to impulsively buying trendy items from social media ads, "intuitive spending" can quickly turn into overspending on things you don't need.

Julie Guntrip, the head of financial wellness at Jenius Bank, told BI that rather than following absolute rules about their spending, people give themselves grace when things don't go to plan.

"Budgeting practices many times fail because people can't stick to them — an individual makes one misstep and decides to give it all up," she said.

A better course of action may be somewhere in the middle.

"Factoring splurges into a budget could be a great compromise for someone who may feel like budgeting is too constraining," Guntrip added. "This practice may actually help someone stick with a budget longer."