Best Gifts | 25 Unique Gifts under $25

Best gifts on a budget. Finding affordable gifts shouldn't be hard, take a look at these 25 fun and unique gifts for under $25.

*Links below may be affiliate links, this will not change the cost, but I may get a small commission

1. Espresso Maker

2. Wine Glasses

3. 7 Year Pen

4. Tea Sampler

5. Scratch off World Map

6. Succulent Planters

7. Mickey Mouse Waffle Maker

8. Vintage Wall Mount Bottle Opener

9. Left Right Center Dice Game

10. Funny Workout Tanks

11. Electric S'Mores Kit

12. Wooden Phone Case

13. Wine Cork/Beer Cap Holder

14. Men and Cats Book

15. Homemade Pretzel Kit

16. Passport Holder

17. Essential Oil Diffuser

18. Bluetooth Speaker

19. Hammock

20. Cardholder

21. Chunky Scarf

22. Cute Makeup Bags

23.Bluetooth Headphones

24. "I'm Late Anyways" Clock

25. Paw Print Ornament Kit

How I Paid $8,500 of Debt in 5 Months (real numbers)

When I graduated college and knew I was moving, the thought of buying a car was daunting. However, instead of buying a $1000 beater car as Dave Ramsey suggests, I decided I would rather buy a new car. I would pay off the loan as quickly as I possibly, and then drive the car into the ground for the next 10 years. I'm a pretty simple girl, I got the most basic Honda Civic I could, mostly because how long Honda's are known to last. Like I said before, I intend to drive this car into the absolute dirt, and it didn't make sense for me to buy a car that wasn't reliable, drive it in the snow, and have the uncertainty of it breaking a month later. I crunched the numbers multiple times and knew if I put my head down I could pay off the loan rather fast.

To buy this car I took out a loan for $8,500, and below is the transaction history of my payments. For the most part I was living off of one paycheck and I would throw what I could of the second at the car. I incurred some unexpected $500 costs along the way that I was able to cash flow, but it definitely slowed down my progress. My payment was $148 for 6 years, and I believe my interest rate was 5.5%. When it was all said and done, I think I paid just under $200 in interest, compared to the $1800 if I had kept the loan for the full 6 years.


I started my job at the end of January and received my first paycheck the first week of February. I track my expenses through the Every Dollar app which allowed me to go back and see the days and amounts I made payments. I also have included little notes of where the money came from, if it was an additional payment.

1/24: $839 ( I had less start up costs for my apartment than anticipated, so I threw that extra money at the car)
2/22: $700 (Saved $1000 into an "emergency fund" from my paycheck, this was the leftover amount)
3/1: $167.50 (Was under my expected budget for February, this is the left over money)
3/18: $500
3/30: $1000 (tax return)
4/5: $367.86 (instead of saving money this month, I threw some more money at the debt to get it under 5k, at this point I actually felt like I was making a dent in it)
4/16: $1108
5/8: $400 (some rollover from the previous month and some graduation money)
5/11: $1660
5/28: $1860 (by the way I budget my paychecks May was a 3 paycheck month, so I threw that entire 3rd paycheck at the car, as well as a little extra I had in savings, to just pay it off) 

Now into what made the actual difference in helping me payoff my car in 5 months. 

Additional Payments

• What made the biggest difference for me was making additional payments throughout the month. This took away the option of me making up excuses as to why I should put that money into savings rather than throw it at debt, and prevented me from spending it on things I didn't need. Also, putting rollover money towards it helped more mentally then anything. As I was nearing the end of the month I saw myself looking at my budget thinking, well I could go out to eat a few times, or I could throw $50 at the car. 
• Also, any additional money that you did not anticipate, put towards debt. For me this came in the form of some graduation money and tax returns. This could also include any bonuses or overtime you may have. 

Budgeting

• Budgeting was the biggest factor for me, and I think for a lot of people. I am very fortunate, and I knew if I made a budget, and stuck to it, I could realistically live comfortably on 1 paycheck.
• I gave myself very little money to splurge on random things. I was realistic with the budget, but did keep it tight. Another tip is to keep your budget to very few "categories," this help me spend overall less money on non necessities. An example for this would be restaurants, clothing, and beauty products would all fall under the miscellaneous category, because they were wants and not needs. I kept this budget rather small, because I cared more about paying this off than I did about buying a cute shirt. It really made me think about my purchases before I made them. I wish I had a budget back in high school and the beginning of college so I could tally up how much money I wasted on ice cream and sun dresses.

•  I also learned a lot about not trying to keep up with people and their spending habits. It was hard to see people buying all sorts of nice things, and spending all sorts of money, when I knew I was more financially stable than them. However, this was a good lesson to learn so early in my adult life, because material things don't hold much value to me personally, and I would rather put my money elsewhere.

Interest

• This was another big thing for me. Now I understand my interest rate was high because I didn't have credit, and my loan was for the longest duration possible, but if I had just made normal payments I would have paid and additional 20% of the initial loan in interest. I was blown away when I saw that, it is important to understand how quickly interest compounds and this can be a great motivating factor to pay down debt. I made a spreadsheet that allowed me to enter different payment amounts throughout the life of the loan and total the amount of interest that would be paid. My initial goal was to pay off the car in a year, but when I realized how much additional interest I would be paying, it didn't make sense to me to put money in savings rather than paying off the debt.
• If anyone has interest (pun intended) in seeing this spreadsheet please let me know. 

All and all, paying off this debt was harder than I anticipated, and now makes me appreciate the money I earn, and no longer have to pay towards my car. It has also taught me that I am uncomfortable with the feeling of debt, and now I look forward to (hopefully) 10 years down the road paying for my next car with cash. There is no golden ticket to paying off debt, live very simply, and stayed focused on your goals.

Let me know your experiences with paying off debt, and if you have any recommendations for others trying to pay off their personal debts!

March Budget Update

I started this month by sharing my monthly budget with my Budget for a Recent Grad Post, and I thought I would update you guys with how my budget went, what worked, what didn't, and how I adjusted my budget throughout the month. I knew that I will very soon (and very sadly) have to pay excise tax on my car, as well as an additional premium to my car insurance because I moved to a different state and am closer to a city. Those 2 items I am estimating will total to $900, which is fine since I am already living on less than half my income, so I can shoulder those costs with my income from this month without having to dip into savings. That being said, I stayed pretty tight with my budget this month, and tax returns helped me put a good chunk of extra money towards my car. Without further ado, here is the breakdown of everything I spent this month. For explanation on the budgeted numbers I have here, check out my other blog post.

Budgeted:

Rent: 775

Internet/Electricity: 75

Car Insurance: 120

Car Payment: 140

Food: 160

Gas: 60

Restaurants: 50 

Subscription: 5

Miscellaneous: 115

Total: 1500

Actual:
Rent: 775
Internet/Electricity: 72.66
Car Insurance: Sinking fund: 120
Car Payment: 140 (again, I pay a lot more than this, but this is my minimum so it's what I include)
Food: 190 (took the extra $30 I needed from my restaurant budget, which I still didn't use. Not quite sure why I spent so much on groceries this month, but I already have a meal plan ready for the first half of next month to make sure that this doesn't happen again)
Gas: 20.25 (still working on getting a good number for gas, but this was filling my tank up once)
Restaurants: 0 ( can I get a pat on the back for this one, I'm proud of myself)
Subscriptions: 5
Miscellaneous: 107
         - 25 - wine (needed to stalk up, you just never know when you're going to need a glass of wine)
         - 32 - Pinterest Strategies book, eventually I would like to make this a solid side hustle,                                although I understand it's going to take a lot of time and work to get to that point, but this                    book seemed like a good start to try and understand Pinterest.
         - 50 - Hydroflask, I haven't bought this yet, but in honor of tax returns I am going to treat                               myself a little, and I have been eyeing these for a long time. This is definitely not a                               necessity, but it's something I will use everyday and will last a long time. I also was well                    below in a few categories, so it's okay.
I was supposed to buy apartment stuff and clothes with this budget, but the things we need for the apartment my roommate covered with the difference between electricity (she pays) and internet/cable (which I pay). Also, my company just switched over to being casual, so now I don't need to buy more dress pants, score! This also had roll over from the previous month, and my budget for miscellaneous next month is half on this.

Total: 1,429.91

I was able to stay under budget this month. Throughout the month I do shift around to reallocate the money, but never add to the budget. I realized pretty early on that I would probably go over on groceries, so took money from my restaurant budget, a not completely necessary item, and moved it over to groceries. I really wanted to make sure I was at or below the budget for this month because of the couple expensive costs coming up. However, I have started to recognize that it's okay to splurge on things, especially when they are within my budget. There was definitely room for improvement in March, but this was only my second full month budgeting, so I'm still learning. If you have any tips and tricks, let me know. If you haven't already checked out my budget for April, check out this post.

I hope you guys enjoyed seeing my progress and let me know if you have any tips for budgeting and let me know what you think I can cut back on!

Best Cruelty Free Products for Acne

I know that trying new skincare products should be fun and a splurge, but when you have acne or sensitive skin, it's the worst. You never know what is going to break you out, and it's never fun wasting money on a product you use for 3 days and then are left with a face full of fresh acne. Believe me, I've been there too many times to count. So here's my two cent as someone who has 

If you saw my acne journey post you know I’ve been struggling with adult acne for the past 8 months or so. When I went to the dermatologist, I bought the Cetaphil she recommended, and I bought it a  couple times before making the decision that I needed to give another cruelty free brand a chance. When I started getting really bad breakouts I had just switched to Say Yes to Tomatoes face line. I don’t believe there is any correlation between using those products and me breaking out, because my brother had the same issues with his skin, so I'm assuming it's genetics. That being said, I was a little nervous to switch after my skin had gotten a little better. After doing a little research I decided to try Alba Botanica's Good and Clean Daily, it had good reviews and I liked their other products so I decided to give it a go. This face wash is a little bit drying for me (I think anything would be considering I use Retin-A and had dry skin before), but I love the way it makes my skin feel. I only use it once a day but make sure to follow with a good moisturizer but I will definitely be purchasing this again.

I rotate between this as well as using Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Soap. This kind of seems expensive, but a little goes an extremely long way and I use this as body soap. I had read a ton of reviews online and everyone talked about how this left their skin feeling squeaky clean, and I can attest to this. Same as the product mentioned before this does leave my skin a little dry, but at this point I think anything will so I follow up with the moisturizer listed below. The nice thing about this product is if you don't like using it on your skin, you can use it for cleaning! You can look up all the ways people use this stuff, it's really interesting

Face Lotion

As mentioned above and my acne post, I use a Retin-A cream, therefore a good moisturizer is a must in my daily life. I’ve tried a few different moisturizers and I would definitely recommend staying away from any face moisturizer that has coconut oil in it. A lot of the more natural products seem to use it and I read a few articles of people swearing by it, but I hate the feeling of it on my skin and it didn’t help the dryness. I have also read articles saying that it clogs your pores, which is not what you want to do when you’re trying to clear your acne, and it isn’t very hydrating. After giving up on the moisturizer I had about a month ago, I set out to the stores to find a cruelty free moisturizer with no coconut oil in it, unfortunately most had coconut oil and salicylic acid (again, my face is so dry and I don’t want to risk drying it out anymore). Since I loved Alba Botanica's other products so much, I decided to try their oil free face moisturizer. This is an absolute game changer if you have dry skin like me, it feels great going on your skin and sinks in nicely. I highly recommend this if you're looking for a cruelty free moisturizer that is oil-free, which is hard to come by in my opinion.Seriously, if you buy one thing from this list, this is what you need to buy. I've been out for 3 days and my skin is peeling and itchy, and I really want my amazon order to come in. *Update, it came in and I feel like my skin is glowing again, I'm absolutely in love with this product.


Alright guys, those are my favorite cruelty free products that I use for acne. I know how hard it is to switch over skin care products, because finding ones that work with your skin can be incredibly difficult. Let me know if you have any suggestions or if you've tried any of these products!

My $1400 Budget

Last month (March), I shared my budget as a recent grad budget. This was a generous month of budgeting for me, I gave myself a little bit of wiggle room when it came to buying extra things for my apartment like fire extinguishers, and buying a few more work clothes. Now, it's time for my budget to get serious. I am on a mission to pay off my car by the middle of June, and I am going full Dave Ramsey on this. If you're unfamiliar with Dave Ramsey, this basically means budgeting, and every other dollar is being thrown at debt. So here is my $1400 budget. For reference, I am single, so I only have to worry about myself, and I live in CT.

Rent: 775

• This includes heat and hot water, and is a 10 minute drive to work. This is fairly average around where I live, I live in a 2 bedroom apartment with a roommate. 

Car: 140

• I am hoping to have this paid off by the middle of summer. That being said, I pay a lot more than this every month by this is my minimum payment.

Cable: 75

• I live with a roommate, so we split cable and electric. Electric ends up being around $40, so    she uses the difference to purchase other things we need

Food: 160

• Realistically speaking this could be lower, but I love food. I can't really justify living off pasta and ramen to save a couple bucks. If a girl wants to treat herself to vegan cheese every now and again, that's okay. It really is crazy how buying food at the grocery store adds up. Try and stay away from frozen and processed foods, they'll eat your budget (get it, eat? I think I'm funny). My goal for this month is to stay under budget and try doing bi-weekly shops to see if that helps with the budget so I stop buying as many unhealthy treats.

Restaurants: 30

• A chunk of this will be rolled over from the month prior. I never order take-out, but eating out is such a social thing. It's funny how I have to justify things in my budget to myself. It's okay to give yourself a little breathing room. Yes, you need to budget and cut your expenses, but if your budget isn't realistic or sustainable you're never going to stick to it

Gas: 40

• This is still an expense I am very unsure about. My first month living here I was driving back and forth to Massachusetts a lot and spent $75, but this month there is a week left and I have a full tank and have only spend $20. Hopefully this will become more of a concrete number over time. Most of my family and friends live over an hour away, so I want to give myself a little wiggle room in case anything pops up

Subscriptions: 5

• If you don't know how much you are spending on subscriptions, check. Between Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Apple Music, and so many more, you could be wasting a whole lot of money. I still have my student account with Apple Music that is worth every penny to me and that is only $5

Miscellaneous: 25

• I cut this by more than half from last month. I also anticipate having some roll over from the month prior. Typically rollover I put towards debt, but there are a few more things I'm in need  and I cut April's budget a lot, so I'm going to hold onto it. This is anything fun I want, and just other little expenses that pop up.

Car Insurance + Phone: 120 + 30

• These are things that I don't pay every month but that go into sinking funds for lump sum payments.

Total: 1400

This is my monthly budget for April, I was able to stay well within budget with a few trades between categories last month. I am hoping I can be a little more diligent with my food, gas, and restaurant money, but I think these are reasonable expectations for myself. Let me know what you think and if you have any tips, happy budgeting!

Katie

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Budget for Recent Grad | Living on less than 50% of your Income

I guess you can say I’m not your average 21 year old. I guess when people graduate they’re probably looking forward to their new car, fabulous apartment, and the paychecks they’ve been waiting for since they started college. I however, was pumped to start budgeting, yes, I’m a loser. The summer before my last semester of college I found Dave Ramsey, and I was hooked. However, Dave Ramsey would not be my #1 fan, because when I graduated I bought a new car. Given, it was a Honda Civic, so the cheapest car on the lot, and I knew this could last me at the very least 10 years. What this has taught me, is I’m not a huge fan of debt, and I want to snowball my way out of this as quickly as possible. Money isn’t everything, but it can give you the freedom to do the things you love. Because of this, I try to stick to my budget, which is still fluctuating at this point, as I’m settling into the real world. I manage to live on half of my post tax and post retirement income, which I am planning on sticking with for as long as I can. When I was graduating, I kept wondering what a realistic budget would look like for a single person. For geographical reference, I live in CT.

Rent: 775

• -this includes heat and hot water, it’s not the nicest apartment in the world, but it’s close to work and they are also currently putting a gym in the building which is nice

Internet/Electricity: 75

• -this is the cost of internet/cable, currently we have I want to say 100 channels, but we only wanted it to watch football, and now we don’t really use it. Electricity ends up being around $40. I pay for cable and my roommate pays for electricity. She either gives me cash for the difference or will use it to buy household items we typically split

Car Insurance: 120

• this is one I was super curious about, my car insurance comes out to being around 120 a month, I paid it as one lump sum when I bought my car to save money, but I thought I would include it for anyone that is curious. It is high, but I am young (therefore higher risk class) and don’t have the insurance bundled with anything to bring the cost down.

Car Payment: 140

• ugh, I hate this, and I pay a lot more than this when I make payments, I’m hoping to have this paid off by the end of summer.

Food: 160

• I’m still working on nailing this down, but right now $40 a week is pretty average, something I could improve on, but I love food, so we’ll see

Gas: 60

• although I have a short drive to work, I’m about a 2 hour drive from family and hour drive from a lot of my friends, so depending if I have plans to go home this fluctuates. Also my Civic gets pretty good gas mileage, which is a perk

Restaurants: 50

• I bring my lunch to work everyday and rarely get take-out. This is set aside for if friends ever want to go out to dinner. Restaurants to me are more of a social activity, rather than a I don’t want to cook thing. I think a lot of people would be surprised if they tracked how much they spend eating out. I think I read that millennial's spend more money eating out than they do on groceries, that’s kind of scary

Subscription: 5

• the only subscription I have is Apple Music, because I can’t stand all the commercials on the radio, and I like to have music downloaded on my phone to listen to during work

Miscellaneous: 115

• again, I’m still settling into my place, and we’re still buying things we need. Who knew you should buy fire extinguishers, or that you needed special stuff to clean an electric stove? This also is “fun money,” for random activities like rock climbing, and then I am in desperate need of finding some new sweaters for work. I expect this to be lower in future months, and I would be surprised if I used all of this, but I wanted to give myself some wiggle room

Total: 1500

Note that my lovely parents have told me I don’t have to worry about my phone for a couple of months, so part of my savings goal this month is to save the money needed to pay off my phone and then pay them for the rest of the year of phone service. I think I owe around $160 on my phone and it might be $30 a month to be on their plan. That is what I’m saving for at least. Also this doesn’t include little things such as birthdays and holidays, just because there are none I need to account for in the month of March. Alright, this is what a budget looks like for a single recent grad, that’s trying to live on half of their income (this will be great when my car debt is paid off). Check back in for an update at the end of the month of how I did sticking to this budget, and let me know if you have any suggestions on how I can budget differently moving forward!

How to Eat Vegan at the Dining Hall

Eating at a dining hall is never easy, I’m pretty sure even the kids that go to schools with top dining halls get sick of the food. That being said, the thought of eating vegan at a dining hall can be very daunting. Limiting your already slim choices can seem like a pain, but being vegan is better for your body, the planet, and the animals. IT’S WORTH IT.

That being said, here is how I survived eating at the dining hall for 2 years as a vegan. I also went to a fairly large school, so my tips might have to be adjusted slightly if your school doesn’t have the amenities that mine had.

1.       Get creative and find some staples

Be creative and find staples that you know you can have regardless of the time of day at the dining hall. You’d probably be surprised with the different amount of ways that I can make a veggie sandwich. Aka my go to when there was really nothing I want to eat in the dining hall. Pile all the veggies you can find, I found the veggies in the salad line to be a little fresher than those in the sandwich line so I always went for that. Also, I’m a big fan of making my own “pasta salad,” grab some pasta from the pasta line (it’s never warm so perfect for pasta salad!) add some Italian dressing and some veggies. Anyways those are just some of my staples, I also went for breakfast for dinner a lot, you can never go wrong with some cinnamon raisin bread and cereal. Get creative and always have some staples you know the dining hall will have regardless of the time of day.

2.       Read the menus before hand

Again, I go to a big school so we have an app where you can look at all the dining halls menus for the next week. You can also filter the foods you want to see, and they even had a vegan filter! I always checked menus before-hand so A. I can go to a dining hall that has something I like or B. I know what there is that I can eat and I don’t have to stand in long lines just to find out I can’t eat anything on the menu. It’s also nice to have a game plan, so you can find what you want quick, rather than reading all the signs figuring out what you can eat. I think for the most part schools post their menus online, so take advantage of this.

3.       Bring your own staples

Another tip is to bring your own staples, when I first went vegan I used to carry a jar of peanut butter in my backpack because I didn’t like the school's. This was nice just to have peanut butter with apples or a banana and peanut butter sandwich. Some of the options can get a little bland so being able to add peanut butter to your fruit or bringing your own hummus to dip veggies in can make all the difference. I’ve also brought nutritional yeast to spice up my pastas. I’ve seen people bring their own avocado and nut butters into the dining hall. We’re all just trying to survive, no one’s going to question you bringing some of your own food in with you.

4.       Don’t skip breakfast

For my school at least, breakfast goes until 10:30 and I always knew there is going to be something I could eat. I know for my school there is always oatmeal, potatoes, melon, and the gluten free section had vegan waffles (score!). Even though I did get a little sick of this rotation, I always knew there was going to be at least one thing that I like and it will keep me full during class. Breakfast is generally a vegan friendly meal, plus there’s always the toast, bagels, and cereal option. Pro tip: If they have blueberry topping for pancakes, add that and a little maple syrup to oatmeal.

5.       French fries are not always your friend

This is probably the saddest one for me to write. I first went vegan during my sophomore year of college and I quit eating dairy and eggs all at once. So, you can imagine it was a little hard watching everyone eat pizza, grilled cheese, and mac and cheese. Especially since I hadn’t figured out the whole eating a balanced diet thing. Safe to say at first I lived off of french fries, cucumbers, and bagels. Anyways, being the food jealous person that I am, I would replace all my cravings for desserts and cheese with fries. Now this would be fine and dandy if I ate them like I do at home, which is baked with no oil. However, the fries that have probably been fried multiple times in the dining hall just isn’t good for your health in any way. Just remember moderation, not everything that is vegan is healthy.

6.       Reach out to dining hall managers

I never did this personally because I was able to find enough to eat, but this might be important if you go to a smaller school and the options are limited. I have friends with allergies that had really good relationships with the dining hall managers and were able to order them plant based milks they could eat, or adjust for the allergies they had. So if you’re having trouble feel free to reach out, they are there to help you, and you’re paying a lot for that meal plan so get your money’s worth. Even if they’re just able to get you plant based milk or vegan butter, it can really help to add to your options.

7.       Bring fruit with you

My last and final tip is to take fruit from the dining hall with you. Most dining halls have a rule where you can take a drink, a fruit, or a dessert out with you. Not sure if most dining halls actually abide by this, but stuff some apples or bananas in your bag just to have on hand. It is hard at first to find enough to eat and get comfortable where you don’t mind asking for help. So it’s nice to have a banana in your bag for if you get hungry in class or when you’re studying.

Best of luck to anyone’s that is vegan and going to be eating at the dining hall. I know it isn’t great all the time but just remember that no one loves eating at the dining hall. Leave any tips below if you’ve eaten plant based at school and have any suggestions that I failed to mention.

Always keep in mind that you’re doing this for your health, the environment, and the animals. It’s definitely worth it.