As the seasons wind down and the holidays approach it is a time to reflect on the year and spend time with your loved ones. Of course, Little League parents rarely have the time nor the money to do this, but these next two months are when you want too.

I always love a good Holiday Party. There are as many iterations of parties as there are days of the Holiday season, but I found some great ideas at Celebrations.

My first and favorite for Little League parents is, of course, a cupcake decorating party for the kids! Kids love Christmas, kids love cupcakes, and kids love decorating. Get a whole bunch of sprinkles, red hots, anything festive, and go to town! This can be done at home w/ friends, at school, pre-school, wherever, and don’t be embarrassed to decorate a few yourself! Go on, it’s fun!

My second favorite thing I found on the site was a post about “office games” for a holiday party. The best, in my mind, was “Guess who’s desk”. Basically, you take 10 items and set them out for people to look at. Each of the items came from someone’s desk and the object is to guess who’s desk they came from. The one that gets all 10 right, wins! I suggest you try and be as off the wall as possible on this, go for the gusto, it could be great fun.

So what is Celebrations.com? A place for expert advice and fun simple planning tools for your next party. It is an interactive community space for sharing party ideas, recipes, photos and videos and a comprehensive resource for life’s most important celebrations.

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I took this awesome Credit card debt help quiz that really helped me out. My billsiq is a B. That’s pretty amazing since my normal financial situation is a D- at best! I heard Dave Ramsey of Fox Business News’ The Dave Ramsey show say one time that he never really had much of a problem making money, it was keeping it that has always been his problem. I can relate!

I am pretty good at figuring out how to make money. It’s fairly simple, just work harder. Managing it and keeping it around? Different story! So I heard about the bills.com IQ test. Pretty cool and fun. I took it, and I got a B! I guess I know what I should do, I just don’t do it. I need some discipline! Ironic, considering this is what I teach on a daily basis.

It is a five part quiz. The first part is credit, then debt, budget, wealth, and life plan. Fairly easy questions for the most part, but ones that cause you to take a serious look at your finances. Good progression as well, from credit to debt and eliminating both, then budgeting creates wealth which leads to a life plan. Very good plan.

Once you complete the test, it gives you advise for every question and offers solutions to overcome any challenges you are having.

Take the quiz at this link:

Credit card debt help

My Financial Haiku:
I work the day long
Just to find my savings gone
Bye money bye bye

Details, Details

The other night I heard one of the manager’s of one of the teams in the Little League World Series say, "we are down by one so strategy says to bunt here". Or did it? Yes, he was down by one, yes, he had a runner on first that he needed to get into scoring position, but, he left out one minor detail, his team was the visiting team.

Conventional Wisdom

Why wouldn’t the visiting team want to tie you ask? Because conventional baseball wisdom dictates that the home team plays to tie, and the visitors play to win. Why? You might ask.

It is fairly simple. The visitors only get one chance to win the game. The home team gets a chance to tie or to win the game. They essentially get two at-bats for every one the visitor gets. Huh? You ask? How can that be? They both bat the same amount of times.

Well, this is true, but, in reality the home team has a huge advantage in a tie or one-run game. Think about it. The visitors get a chance to win the game in the top of the sixth. If they score, the home team gets a chance to win or come back. The visitors are not afforded the same opportunity. If they score, they have to defend their lead. If the home team scores then they win, game over.

Two for One

Therefore, the home team gets to bat twice for every one time the visitors get to bat. Once to catch up, once to win. It is a very advantagous position from which to play. And also the reason you should always pick home when you win the coin flip.

The Proper Strategy

So what is the strategy when down by one? If you are the visitiors, you must play for 2 runs. If you are tied, you must play for 1 run. Play to go into the bottom of the sixth with a lead.

If you are the home team, play for the tie. You will be guaranteed another at-bat no matter what the visitors do. They don’t have that luxury. So down by 1, play to get one, all tied up, play to win.

What are your favorite strategies to employ in this situation? Bunt? Hit and Run? Steal? The list is endless.

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