Thoughts on Holiday Shopping

Holiday Shopping season is here. Retailers were eager for Halloween to be over to roll out everything holiday related. You may have read in the news that Amazon and Walmart are engaged in price wars with Target following close behind.

What does this mean to you? This means that this holiday shopping season it will be a buyers’ market. The deals are already aplenty, with Walmart even rolling out one-day sales this year. I only suspect that as Black Friday comes and goes these wars will get even fiercer.

While it is already a buyers market and deals are and will be plentiful, how do you keep yourself from getting carried away? I think we can all admit that it is easy to get carried away when bargain shopping. So how do you stop yourself from being an statistic: one in 13 million Americans still paying credit card bills from last year’s holiday shopping?

  1. Create a budget of how much you can spend on this year’s holiday shopping. It is important to determine how much you can afford to spend, so you stick to this amount.
  2. Make a list and stick to it. This is very important. Without a list you face the risk of overbuying for some and not buying for others. Ultimately this results in you overspending.
  3. Don’t jump on a deal because it is “such a great deal.” In other words, control yourself. Even if a deal is such a “great deal” if you don’t need the item what you have just done is waste your hard earned money.

I am just like you, I love the Holidays and I love shopping for others. While this is usually a blog for saving money on everyday items I understand that right now you are probably looking for gifts for others. I want to help you get a good deal on those too. Just like last year I am going to keep an eye out for really good deals on gifts. It would be helpful for me if you gave me an idea of what kind of things you are looking for (so, leave me a comment). I know most likely you are looking for toys, so I will start highlighting some good toy deals at brick and mortar stores as well as online. I just wanted to let you know this, so you know that I am adding these type of deals for the Holiday season and it is not because this blog has changed focus permanently.