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holiday shopping

Gifts

6 Smart Ways To Save Money On Holiday Gifts

holiday shopping tipsThere’s nothing quite like witnessing the awe and excitement when kids come downstairs on Christmas morning to see a pile of presents under the tree, or the joy of presenting a Hanukkah gift that your child has been begging for. In fact, people can get so caught up in these special moments that they’ll spend any amount of money to ensure gift recipients are pleased. Unfortunately, this often leads to rampant overspending, made all the more likely by the many sales that encourage holiday shoppers to blow their money on great deals for items they don’t really need. We’ve all been caught in this trap. But there are ways to save this holiday season and reach the New Year without having to take a second mortgage on your home in order to pay credit card debt.

Start with a budget. If you want to save money you absolutely must set a budget and find ways to stick to it. If you start spending willy-nilly, you’re going to go overboard. With a budget in place you can calculate how much you need to spend on each person, shift allocations if you end up spending a little more or less than anticipated, and come in at or under your budget by the end of the holiday shopping season.

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Shopping

Smart Online Holiday Shopping Basics For Newbies

online shopping for holidaysIt seems incredible that the year is more than half over already, but with summer temperatures fading fast and the kids back in school, the holidays are only a hop, skip, and jump away at this point. And that means it’s time for savvy shoppers to begin their tentative foray into the holiday shopping fray. If you’ve battled your way through the maddening crowd to get the hottest holiday finds before, you’re probably not looking forward to standing in long lines on Black Friday and fighting tooth-and-nail to snatch that coveted toy off the store shelf before someone else. So you’ll be happy to hear that online shopping helps you find everything you want for the holidays without having to deal with the hustle and bustle of real-world retail. But in order to get the best deals and find the perfect holiday gifts for everyone on your list, you need to know some basics, especially if you’re relatively new to online holiday shopping.

The first thing you might want to do is look for pre-order options. Whether you’re waiting for the hottest toys, the latest gadgets, or media that won’t be released until closer to the holidays, many websites offer pre-order options that mean you’ll get your items in time for the holidays with no muss or fuss. Amazon is a good bet since they offer both reminders and pre-order options for many items if you have an account with them.

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Gifts

An Easy Way To Christmas Shop For Less

christmas shopping online saves stress and is a lot of funI had a great time Christmas shopping this year.  I don’t really enjoy shopping in crowded malls, so this year I avoided the mall scene altogether.  I shopped on amazon.ca and found everything I was looking for, and at reasonable prices, too.

Here are some ways to make amazon.ca work for you:

 Take advantage of free shipping.   When I first started shopping, I found a few items I really liked but didn’t pay attention to the shipping fees.  When I proceeded to the checkout I realized that the items I chose did not qualify for free shipping.  Go figure!  I hadn’t noticed that the items I selected were not Amazon products, but instead, were sold by a private seller using the Amazon website. Those products do not qualify for free shipping.  So, after learning this the hard way, I decided to make a point of only looking at the products that are eligible for free shipping.  Amazon provides free shipping when you buy a minimum of $25 worth of products.  That’s a great deal!

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