November 2, 2024

Straight From the Experts

The holidays might be the most wonderful time of the year, but between your gift list, special events and parties, and travel expenses, it can also teeter on the most expensive.

Whether you’re dreaming of your family’s home-cooked meals or escaping to an exotic destination, the reality is that for many of us, soaring airfare and hotel prices can put a financial damper on your holiday travel plans.

In fact, a recent survey by Union Bank found that nearly half of millennials claim money is the reason they won’t make it home for Christmas this year. So, in order to keep your holiday travel aspirations without blowing your year-end budget, we tapped industry experts to share their most insightful tips for saving serious cash on holiday travel.

Put that money toward your gifting budget, an extra vacation day, or right back into your savings account!

Cut a Piece of Wrapping Paper Too Small? This Viral Hack Can Help

Please excuse me for a moment, dear reader; I need to pick up the remains of my hypothetically exploded brain. Why, you ask? Because I just learned a glorious gift-wrapping hack that has blown my mind and made me question my existence and intelligence.

UK-based bookseller Waterstones is going viral on Twitter for sharing a video that demonstrates how to wrap a rectangular holiday gift after cutting a piece of paper that’s too small to cover it horizontally or vertically. In the seven-second clip originally created by Blossom Hacks, a mysterious pair of hands simply rotates the gift diagonally, and voila – the same piece of paper magically wraps around the entire gift, leaving no surface exposed. Somewhere back in Florida, my high school geometry teacher is weeping and shaking her fist in the air at me for not taking her lessons to heart.

It looks like I’m not the only one out there whose eyes have just been opened to this genius trick. The video has been viewed nearly 14 million times and flooded with hundreds of comments, ranging from “Where the hell have I been? ” to “What kind of sorcery is this? ” Although a handful of Twitter users chimed in to comment on how the metallic paper used in the video isn’t recyclable and therefore should be avoided for Mother Earth’s sake – a valid point, I must say – the method is nevertheless a game changer and can be used with eco-friendly wrapping paper as well.

These 20 Banana Republic Buys Are GOOP-Approved and G-O-O-D

In a no-brainer collaboration, GOOP gathered some of the best Banana Republic items into a curated collection that suits just about every wardrobe need. From workwear to clothes for a weekend kickback, these picks are both classic and versatile.

Browsing the lineup of Banana Republic tops and accessories in specific colors picked by GOOP is literally like having a personal shopper on hand to put together a head-to-toe outfit. The selections somehow all work interchangeably, or you can grab yourself a one-off to go with something already in your closet.

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