1. Shop Earlier! By far, the best thing that you can do to lower your expenses during the holidays is to shop earlier. Yes, there are Black Friday sales and Cyber Monday deals, but if you want to save the big bucks, then you need to start shopping extra early. How early? Try the days following Christmas! After the holiday has come and gone, most retailers slash their prices up to 75% (and sometimes more) on holiday items. This is the perfect time to pick up next year’s holiday cards and decorations at bargain basement prices. You can even stock up on some smaller, generic items like gift tags and bows. If done right, you can spend a few bucks at the local Wal-Mart and come home with enough of these minor items to last a few years – eliminating these costs for the foreseeable future.
2. Shop Smart. We are blessed to live in the age of the internet – so use it to your advantage! While it is unnecessary to make all of your holiday purchases online, doing so might save you some cash. The real money-saving lure of the internet, though, is the ability to “shop around” from the comfort of your own home. Use the internet to create a shopping strategy and to compare prices. Check to see if the electronics super store can beat the wholesale club or the big box discount store for the digital camera that your brother wants. Once you’ve found the lowest prices on all of your gift list items, map out a strategy for your shopping day. Remember, saving money also means eliminating redundancy in your traveling. There’s no reason to spend more on gasoline because you didn’t pre-map your shopping excursion.
3. Make a list. And check it twice! One of the textbook strategies to reduce your expenses at the store is to make a list of what you want to pick up at the store and stick to it. If you are going to a store to buy a specific video game or DVD set, then retrieve the item, pay for it, and move on to the next store. The longer you stay in one store, the more likely you are to pick up an extra few items. As an additional point on lists – be sure to ask those who are on your gift list what they want the most this holiday season. There’s no use in buying Mom a new set of lamps for the living room when she really wants a new luxurious bathrobe and spa set from JC Penney.
4. Re-gift. I should have named this point “have no shame in your game” since that’s the core point. Remember the under the kitchen cabinet combination CD player and radio that you won at the office party? Since you’ll never have a use for such an item you may as well wrap it up and send it off to Aunt Tillie. The point here is that if you have unopened, unused items that you really don’t want and are worthy of being given as a gift, then you can save considerable amounts of money by using the art of re-gifting. Be careful, though. You need to keep your re-gifting worlds separate. Take items that you receive from co-workers and give them to family members and then use items from family members as gifts to friends, etc. When re-gifting, always be sure to maintain a separation between your various social groups.
5. Pay in cash. While the economy continues tying itself into knots, the major financial institutions are becoming more restrictive with their credit card policies. Some people are waking up and finding that their interest rate has jumped while their credit limit has been decreased. If you are paying for your gifts in cash or with a debit card, then you do not run the risk of having to pay an increased interest rate over the next few months while the market figures itself out. Part of being aware of which items you can pay for in cash is understanding that you may need to restrict your spending this holiday season. In these uncertain economic times, it is important to keep your financial house in order. Sometimes, to keep your own house in order you need to restrict your spending – even during the holiday season. If there is a silver lining in restricting your spending this year it is that there is a strong chance that the people who are buying you gifts are doing the same thing.

These are just a few of the many ways that you can save some money this holiday season. When all else fails, though, remember that this season really isn’t about fancy gifts or expensive trinkets. Family, friends, fellowship, and faith – those are the only things that most people need to enjoy the holiday season. And we’re in luck because they all come free of charge!

For my part, I usually go shopping the day after Thanksgiving in part because of the hysteria of the day and in part because there are great deals to be found if you look for them. One of the places that I go to look for these deals is Black Friday Ads. This is a site that posts the much sought after Black Friday specials and sales for all of the major retailers. A few years ago a consortium of retailers tried to have this site shut down arguing that they were sharing private information. However, the popularity of the site proved that consumers want to know about Black Friday deals well in advance of the wee hours of that Friday morning.

Being led by the shrewd business people that some of them are, a few companies used this critical market research to begin publicizing their Black Friday specials on their websites in advance of the actual holiday. This Christmas season has seen yet another shift in strategy as major companies like Wal-Mart are now offering “Pre-Black Friday” sales. For example, Wal-Mart offered a $298 Compaq laptop computer (only 10 per location) on the morning of November 8th. I think Wal-Mart has the right idea here because they are rewarding those early shoppers with great deals and keeping some of the hysteria in place associated with the Black Friday aura.

At the end of last year’s Christmas season I was sure to pick up a good supply of the “other” things that celebrators need for this time of the year: bows, holiday scented candles, Christmas cards, tags, tape, tissue paper, Christmas boxes, etc. That stuff can actually add up if bought in one pre-Christmas Day purchase! All I need to get this year are the presents to fill the wrapping paper and for which to place the tags. I don’t anticipate going crazy this year for Christmas, but I do have an idea of what I am going to buy for everyone on my list.

Haven’t checked that list twice yet, though…