Bruce Helmer and Peg Webb

After several years of stubborn inflation and steep borrowing costs, this holiday season finds many families determined to celebrate — but quietly worried about how much they’re spending.

With the average American planning to shell out roughly $1,700 on gifts, travel, and entertaining this year (up from about $1,430 in 2022) those worries are understandable.

Furthermore, tariffs have already raised prices by an average of 5%, according to the Harvard Business School Pricing Lab’s analysis of more than 350,000 goods. Ultimately, companies pass along their increased costs to consumers. Frequent holiday staples like toys, electronics and clothing are some of the products most impacted by tariffs, with costs increasing as much as 35% in some categories.

Even for people who manage to stay within budget, six in 10 shoppers later regret at least some of their purchases, especially parents with young children who often overspend to make the season “perfect.”

That buyer’s remorse doesn’t only come from an empty wallet. It also comes from guilt: the uneasy sense that we’ve spent too much, or on the wrong things, or for the wrong reasons. The good news is that a few simple mindset shifts and habits can help you celebrate generously without feeling financial regret come January.

Start with joy, not numbers

Financial advisers usually tell clients to keep emotion out of money decisions. The holidays are the exception. Budgeting by emotion and buying what truly brings joy to the recipient can be more effective than budgeting by category.

Start by making a “joy-per-dollar” list. Which purchases last year made you happiest? Which ones barely registered once the wrapping paper hit the recycling bin? Cut the low-joy categories first. Then pre-commit an overall number for generosity (covering gifts, charitable donations, and gatherings) and say it out loud to a partner or friend. This small act of accountability helps keep your plan real.

Use a cap that fights spending creep

A common rule of thumb is to keep total holiday spending within 1-2% of annual income, but you should pick the level that’s right for you. Translating that limit into weekly mini-budgets between now and New Year’s can prevent that “just-one-more-gift” mentality. The idea isn’t to cut out celebration, but to contain it, so you can enjoy the season without regretting overspending.

Buy early, buy fewer, buy better

Inflation may have eased, but prices on many goods remain higher than pre-pandemic levels. Stretch your dollars by shopping early and intentionally. Prioritize one meaningful gift per person rather than a pile of filler gifts. If you’re traveling or hosting, fold those costs such as gas, airfare, hotels and food into your holiday plan from the start instead of treating them as extras.

Whenever possible, choose experiences over material goods: a family concert, a cooking class, or tickets to a local attraction. These memories often outlast items. And if you can, shop local and purchase items that reflect your values. Spending that aligns with your principles will ultimately feel more rewarding in the long run.

Cards, cash, and ‘buy now, pay later’

Today’s average credit card interest rate is roughly 21%, meaning every impulse swipe of your card can quickly become expensive. If you tend to carry a balance, consider using a debit card or a prepaid spending account for gifts. Turn on real-time spending alerts in your mobile banking app; this can serve as a modern substitute for the old cash-envelope system.

And be cautious with “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) plans. Surveys show nearly half of BNPL users regret at least one purchase. If you do use one, limit yourself to a single BNPL loan at a time and set calendar reminders for each payment.

Three quick ways to curb impulse buying

• Apply the 48-hour rule. Leave online items in your cart for two days; if you still want them after 48 hours, clink “checkout.”

• Say no to instant-discount store cards. Their teaser offers often come with higher interest rates.

• Unsubscribe and mute. Reducing promotional emails and retail app notifications can help you stick to your list.

When you’ve already overspent

If the damage is done, don’t panic, just prioritize. Pay down the highest-rate balances first. Return unopened items or exchange them for shared experiences instead. Then automate payments above the minimum to ensure progress. A short-term balance-transfer card can help, but only if you’re confident you can clear the debt before the low-interest window closes.

Focus on gratitude, not guilt

Ultimately, guilt fades when your plan matches your values. Give yourself permission to celebrate wisely. The holidays are about connection, not perfection, and about sharing what matters most, not what costs the most.

A little planning, a little perspective, and a lot of gratitude can turn this year’s spending season into one you’ll remember fondly, not fretfully. And that’s a gift worth keeping.

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The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

Bruce Helmer and Peg Webb are financial advisers at Wealth Enhancement Group and co-hosts of “Your Money” on WCCO 830 AM on Sunday mornings. Email Bruce and Peg at yourmoney@wealthenhancement.com. Advisory services offered through Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC, a registered investment adviser and affiliate of Wealth Enhancement Group.

 

President Donald Trump’s pledge to terminate temporary legal protections for Somalis living in Minnesota is triggering fear in the state’s deeply-rooted immigrant community, along with doubts about whether the White House has the legal authority to enact the directive as described.

In a Truth Social post late Friday, Trump said he would “immediately” strip Somali residents in Minnesota of Temporary Protected Status, a legal safeguard against deportation for immigrants from certain countries.

The announcement drew immediate pushback from some state leaders and immigration experts, who characterized Trump’s declaration as a legally dubious effort to sow fear and suspicion toward Minnesota’s Somali community, the largest in the nation.

“There’s no legal mechanism that allows the president to terminate protected status for a particular community or state that he has beef with,” said Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

“This is Trump doing what he always does: demagoguing immigrants without justification or evidence and using that demagoguery in an attempt to take away important life-saving protections,” she added.

The Trump administration has until mid-January to revoke the legal protection for Somalis nationally. But that move would affect only a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of Somalis living in Minnesota. A report produced for Congress in August put the number of Somalis covered by TPS at just 705 nationwide.

“I am a citizen and so are (the) majority of Somalis in America,” Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Somali, said in a social media post Friday. “Good luck celebrating a policy change that really doesn’t have much impact on the Somalis you love to hate.”

Still, advocates warned the move could inflame hate against a community at a time of rising Islamophobia.

“This is not just a bureaucratic change,” said Jaylani Hussein, president of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It is a political attack on the Somali and Muslim community driven by Islamophobic and hateful rhetoric.”

In his social media post, Trump claimed, without offering evidence, that Somali gangs had targeted Minnesota residents and referred to the state as a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”

Federal prosecutors have in recent weeks brought charges against dozens of people in a social-services fraud scheme. Some of the defendants hail from Somalia. “Accountability is coming,” Minnesota Republican Rep. Tom Emmer wrote in response to that story.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, has noted that Minnesota consistently ranks among the safest states in the country.

“It’s not surprising that the President has chosen to broadly target an entire community,” Walz said Friday. “This is what he does to change the subject.”

In response to Trump’s announcement, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison his office was “exploring all of our options,” adding that Trump “cannot terminate TPS for just one state or on a bigoted whim.”

“Somali folks came to Minnesota fleeing conflict, instability and famine, and they have become an integral part of our state, our culture and our community,” he added.

The protection has been extended 27 times for Somalians since 1991, with U.S. authorities determining that it was unsafe for people already in the United States to return there.

Somalia for decades has been regarded as one of the world’s most dangerous countries. People have been fleeing ever since leader Siad Barre was removed in 1991 by clan-based militias and civil war erupted. The chaos later led to the rise of the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militant group, which still holds parts of the country and carries out deadly attacks in the capital, Mogadishu, and elsewhere against the fragile federal government.

Community advocates note that the Somali diaspora in Minnesota has helped to revitalize downtown corridors in Minneapolis and plays a prominent role in the state’s politics.

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“The truth is that the Somali community is beloved and long-woven into the fabric of many neighborhoods and communities in Minnesota,” said Altman. “Destabilizing families and communities makes all of us less safe and not more.”

As part of a broader push to adopt hardline immigration policies, the Trump administration has moved to withdraw various protections that had allowed immigrants to remain in the United States and work legally.

That included ending TPS for 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians who were granted protection under President Joe Biden. The Trump administration has also sought to limit protections previously extended to migrants from Cuba and Syria, among other countries.

WINNIPEG — For his first pregame warmup of his second stint with the Minnesota Wild, center Nico Sturm was wired up with a strap around his chest that holds a cardiac monitor.

With that, team trainers were keeping an eye on Sturm’s heartbeat and other vital signs during the 12 to 15 minutes he spent wearing a Wild game jersey, passing and shooting with teammates, with no intention of actually getting to play against the Penguins on Friday.

If Sturm was trying to conceal his excitement about getting back into a NHL game, biofeedback gave him away.

“They said I had a (heart) load for a full period out there,” Sturm said, speaking to reporters in the Pittsburgh press box as his future teammates overwhelmed the Penguins.

After returning to the Wild as a free agent this summer, Sturm suffered an injury on Day 1 of training camp. It required surgery.

“I always like to say as you play a lot more games in the league, the second I think you do that and it doesn’t feel special anymore is when you probably know that it’s time to hang them up,” Sturm said. “And I think I’m a long, long way from that.”

Sturm turned 30 in May, when he was in the midst of a Stanley Cup run with the Florida Panthers. Not long after the Cup parade in South Florida, he signed a contract with Minnesota and made arrangements to return to where it all started. He made his NHL debut with the Wild in 2019, after a long and winding road that included stops in his native Germany, in Texas, in southern Minnesota, in Nebraska, and upstate New York,

He played 120 games with the Wild over the course of four seasons.

After spending time with Colorado, San Jose and Florida, Sturm opted to come back to Minnesota and bring his renowned faceoff and penalty killing skills to the Wild. Then the injury happened, and his future was suddenly cast into doubt.

In missing the Wild’s first 22 games, Sturm will jump into the lineup in Winnipeg on Sunday for a team that has emphatically rejoined the Western Conference playoff picture by going 8-1-1 in their last 10 games.

That’s a far cry from the 3-6-3 October that Sturm watched in street clothes.

“I think there’s a part in your career, I think especially early on, where you don’t want things to go too well when you’re not playing,” he said. “I mean, it’s the truth. You need your spot on the lineup. Teams that win all the time don’t make a ton of changes. And now I’m at a point in my career where all I want to do is win.

“So, it’s like I don’t care if I’m not in the lineup and we win. Hell, yeah. I’m fired up for the boys, especially with the way we started, and I want to play playoffs as soon I came here, so can’t be sitting and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, yeah, we lost six games, but it’ll get better when I’m back in lineup.’ But we’ve got to make playoffs, so it doesn’t really matter.”

With Vinnie Hinostroza headed back to Minnesota with an injury, Sturm is a good bet to center the team’s third line between Yakov Trenin and Marcus Foligno when the Wild meet the Jets here for the first time this season.

Jets face a flight delay

The Jets announced Friday that star goalie Connor Hellebuyck will miss the next 4-6 weeks with because of what the team is calling minor knee surgery. Last season, Hellebuyck won 47 games and loaded up on NHL hardware, grabbing league honors for the top goalie and the most valuable player.

He was also the goalie of record as the Jets went 3-0-0 against the Wild.

For now, Eric Comrie and Thomas Milic are expected to be Winnipeg’s goalie tandem. For those wondering about the status of Team USA’s top goalie, it was pointed out that Hellebuyck is expected to be healthy in time for the 2026 Winter Olympics in February.

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By Chaseedaw Giles, KFF Health News

LOS ANGELES — Kris Edwards waited at home with friends for his wife, Erika “Tilly” Edwards, to go out to dinner, but she never made it back to the house they had purchased only four days earlier. Around 9 p.m. on June 29, a hit-and-run driver killed Tilly as she walked to her car after a fundraiser performance in Hollywood.

“I’ve just got to figure out how to keep living. And the hard part with that is not knowing why,” Edwards said of his wife’s death.

An engagement photo of Kris Edwards and his wife, Erika“ Tilly” Edwards, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver in June 2025. (Chaseedaw Giles/KFF Health News/TNS)

Despite local, state, and federal safety campaigns, such as the global Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities, such deaths are up 20% in the U.S. from a decade ago, from 32,744 in 2014 to an estimated 39,345 in 2024, according to data from the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Although traffic deaths have declined since peaking at 43,230 in 2021, the number of deaths remains higher than a decade ago.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pew Research Center found, Americans’ driving habits have worsened across multiple measures, from reckless driving to drunken driving, which road safety advocates call a public health failure. They say technology could dramatically reduce traffic deaths, but proposals often run up against industry resistance, and the Trump administration is focusing on driverless cars to both innovate and improve public safety.

“Every day, 20 people go out for a walk, and they don’t return home,” said Adam Snider, a spokesperson for the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state road safety offices.

Kris Edwards points to photos of his wife, Erika“ Tilly” Edwards, who was killed in June 2025. (Chaseedaw Giles/KFF Health News/TNS)

American roads have become more dangerous than violent crimes in some cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston are among the major cities that now report more traffic fatalities than homicides. In 2024, the Los Angeles Police Department reported an estimated 268 homicides and 302 traffic deaths, the second consecutive year that the number of people killed in collisions exceeded the number of homicide victims, according to Crosstown LA, a nonprofit community news outlet.

San Francisco reported more than 40 traffic deaths and 35 homicides in 2024. In Houston, approximately 345 people died in crashes and 322 from homicide.

“Simply put, the United States is in the middle of a road safety emergency,” David Harkey, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, testified during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing this summer. Out of 29 high-income countries, America ranks at the bottom in road safety, Harkey said. “This spike is not — I repeat, is not — a global trend. The U.S. is an outlier.”

In January 2017, then-Mayor Eric Garcetti joined 13 other L.A. city leaders in pledging to implement the Vision Zero action plan and eliminate traffic deaths in the city by 2025.

Instead, deaths have increased.

Kris Edwards holds a leather photo album with memories of his wife, Erika“ Tilly” Edwards, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver in June 2025. (Chaseedaw Giles/KFF Health News/TNS)

An audit released in April that was commissioned by the city’s administrative officer found that the level of enthusiasm for the program at City Hall has diminished and that it suffered because of “the pandemic, conflicts of personality, lack of total buy-in for implementation, disagreements over how the program should be administered, and scaling issues.” The report also cited competing interests among city departments and inconsistent investment in the city’s most dangerous traffic corridors.

Mayor Karen Bass’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last year, California state Sen. Scott Wiener proposed a bill that would have required new cars sold in the state to include “intelligent speed assistance,” software that could prevent vehicles from exceeding the speed limit by more than 10 mph. But the bill was watered down following pushback from the auto industry and opposition from some legislators who called it government overreach. It was ultimately vetoed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said a state mandate would disrupt ongoing federal safety assessments.

Kris Edwards holds a note from a jar of origami hearts, a Valentine’ s Day gift from his wife, Erika“ Tilly” Edwards, after the couple got engaged seven years ago. He has yet to open all the hearts, which contain memories, poems, movies and quotes. Instead, he is saving some for when he needs them. (Chaseedaw Giles/KFF Health News/TNS)

Meanwhile, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an influential automotive lobby, this year sued the federal government over an automatic emergency braking rule adopted during the Biden administration. The lawsuit is pending in federal court while the Department of Transportation completes a review. Even before Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term, the alliance appealed to the president-elect in a letter to support consumer choice.

Under Trump, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is prioritizing the development of autonomous vehicles by proposing sweeping regulatory changes to test and deploy driverless cars. “Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards were written for vehicles with human drivers and need to be updated for autonomous vehicles,” NHTSA Chief Counsel Peter Simshauser said in September in announcing the modernization effort, which includes repealing some safety rules. “Removing these requirements will reduce costs and enhance safety.”

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Some Democratic lawmakers, however, have criticized the administration’s repeal of safety rules as misguided since new rules can be implemented without undoing existing safeguards. NHTSA officials did not respond to requests for comment about Democrats’ concerns.

Advocates worry that without continued adoption of road safety regulations for conventional vehicles, factors such as excessive speed and human error will continue to drive fatalities despite the push for driverless cars.

“We need to continue to have strong collaboration from the federal, state, local sectors, public sector, private sector, the everyday public,” Snider, of the Governors Highway Safety Association, said. “We need everyday drivers to get involved.”

It took nearly a month for police to track down the driver of a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen allegedly involved in Tilly’s death. Authorities have charged Davontay Robins with vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, felony hit-and-run driving, and driving with a suspended license due to a previous DUI. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is out on bail.

Kris Edwards now tends to the couple’s backyard garden by himself. Since his wife’s death, he has experienced sleep deprivation, fatigue, and trouble eating, and he relies on a cane to walk. His doctors attribute his ailments to the brain’s response to grief.

“I’m not alone,” he said. “But I am lonely, in this big, empty house without my partner.”

A hit-and-run driver killed Erika “Tilly” Edwards as she walked to her car after a fundraiser performance in Los Angeles’ Hollywood neighborhood in June 2025. Despite safety campaigns, U.S. traffic deaths are up 20% from a decade ago, according to the Department of Transportation. (Chaseedaw Giles/KFF Health News/TNS)

Edwards hopes for justice for his wife, though he said he’s unsure if prosecutors will get a conviction. He wants her death to mean something: safer streets, slower driving, and for pedestrians to be cautious when getting in and out of cars parked on busy streets.

“I want my wife’s death to be a warning to others who get too comfortable and let their guard down even for a moment,” he said. “That moment is all it takes.”

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.