By Sheryl Smolkin

Halloween is over, Remembrance Day is this week and the stores are starting to look a lot like Christmas. But keep the end game is sight and don’t be distracted by advertising for the latest hardware or fashions that may blow your budget out of the water.

On Retire Happy, Sarah Milton writes about “How to stick with your financial goals.” She says what makes the difference between success and stalling comes down to three things: knowing what you want; chasing your fears and building a tribe.

Mint’s blog Personal Finance Guide to Setting Goals and Sticking to Them notes that financial planning is all about goals. There are two islands: what you have and what you want. The bridge between the two is your personal finance budget. Getting to where you want to be requires vision, planning and discipline – the vision to know what you want, a plan to get there and the discipline to stick with your plan.

Big Cajun Man, author of the Canadian Personal Finance Blog says We Invest the Way We Vote. In both cases, we make a hurried, uninformed decision after being unduly influenced by people who have their own agenda on why they want you to do it. Typically the decision may even be made at the last-minute, using your “gut” to decide. Let’s hope our US friends make rational decisions when they go to the polls this week!

When Do You Stop Helping Your Adult Children? Marie Engen questions on Boomer & Echo. She answers, “If your adult children are asking for something, whether it’s babysitting services, money, or something else and you need to say no, say it clearly. Don’t hint around that you’re busy or you’ve had a lot of expenses lately.”

And finally, with the dropping temperatures and snow falling already in parts of the country, you may be planning a warm weather get away. Mark Seed at my Own Advisor has some great hints for how to save and splurge on a vacation. He suggests skyscanner and Chris Myden’s suite of sites for flight deals. And I bet you didn’t know you can get great deals on car rentals from Costco’s web site!

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