By Elyssa Kirkham, Go Banking Rates
holiday deals
The holidays have a strange ability to stretch us to our limits — our sanity, our time and especially our savings accounts. The best way to make sure you don’t start out the New Year with a mountain of holiday debt is to start planning and saving now. Get started with this list of 51 savings tips for the holidays – one each day to last from now until Christmas.
Before You Start
1. Set a Budget: Hopefully you’ve been depositing money into your savings account all year to fund holiday shopping. Whether you’ve amassed some holiday savings, it’s vital to create a budget identifying how much money you can afford and are willing to spend, and how that is going to broken up.
Whether you’re attending holiday-themed events, going out to eat or paying for holiday travel, be sure to make a note of anything that would go above and beyond your typical monthly budget.
2. Stay Zen: Don’t get too caught up in the buying frenzy or fall for marketing tactics retailers use to get you to spend more. Avoid advertisements and try not to compare your holiday spending habits with others’. Just stay focused on your own budget.
3. Take Inventory: Go through your closets and set aside unwanted or unused items. Often these can be regifted or repurposed into DIY Christmas projects.
4. Start Early: You can save on gift-giving by starting now. This will give you plenty of time to wait for the right deal, make sure items will be shipped and received on time, and start on your money-saving DIY gifts or decorations. Getting an early start will cut down on stress, too!
5. Redeem Credit Card Points: Now’s the time to redeem the credit card points you’ve been earning all year and increase your purchasing power for the holidays.
6. Avoid Paying on Credit: It might be a good strategy to charge holiday gifts to your credit card to earn points, but make sure you don’t spend more than you can pay off right away. Getting hit with credit card interest could make your holiday purchases 15 to 20 percent pricier.
Tips for Thanksgiving
7. Raid the Pantry: Check your cupboards before grocery shopping to make sure you’re not buying extras of food items or spices you already have. See if you can change recipes slightly to use what you already have.
8. Plan the Portions: Figure out how much food you’ll need for the number of guests you expect to feed, and buy accordingly. Instructables.com has a handy calculator that can be used to determine how much of different ingredients you’ll need to have on hand, which can help you avoid over-buying and wasting food.
9. Cook the Favorites: Focus on having a lot of what people really love to eat, and skip the dishes that always seem to get passed over to avoid wasted food (and money).
10. Make it a Potluck: Just because you’re the host of a holiday gathering doesn’t mean you have to foot the bill for the entire function. Assign guests to bring a side dish, dessert, disposable dishes, tables settings or a beverage to pair with the meal.
11. Buy Smaller, Frozen Turkeys: For turkey, you should count on about one pound per person. Frozen is cheaper than fresh, and buying two eight-pound birds will cost less than one 16-pound turkey.
12. Or Get Your Bird for Free: Check store mailers in your area; turkeys are a popular enough item that stores will greatly discount them in order to get you in the door. Last year, for instance, Fresh & Easy stores offered a free frozen turkey with a purchase of $30 or more.
13. Use Leftovers: Make sure that leftovers are eaten! If kids leave food on their plates, plastic wrap it and save it for them to finish later. Also, consider using the turkey carcass to make soup or broth — it’s delicious and easier than you’d think.
Smart Shopping
14. Shop With a List: Whether you’re shopping for groceries for Thanksgiving or gifts for the family, go with a list in hand to avoid buying unnecessary items and going over budget.
15. Consult Promotional Mailers: Use mailers to find the items that are steeply marked down, and cross-reference with your grocery or gift list to identify the best deals for your family.
16. Clip Coupons: Check your favorite retailers’ mailers and websites for coupons or promotional codes before heading to the store.
17. Use Shopping Apps: Sixty-eight percent of smartphone users plan to use their devices to help them shop, compare prices, find deals and more, according to a holiday spending survey from Deloitte.
See our picks for money-saving apps that find the best Christmas gifts.
18. Claim Price Adjustments and Price Matching: After buying an item, watch out to see if it goes on sale in the next two weeks. If so, most stores will refund you the difference! Many stores will also price match with competitors, which can save you time and money from having to run around as much.
19. Save Receipts: You’ll need these to return or exchange items, or to claim a price adjustment. Extra points if you keep them organized!
20. Bundle Online Orders: This will save on shipping, and ordering all at once could help you reach the larger spending limits that often come with larger savings (such as $20 off $100, for example).
21. Get Free Shipping: Order on Free Shipping Day or hunt down coupons for free shipping. Many online retailers also offer free shipping for orders larger than a certain amount.
See more tips in our guide on free shipping.
22. Have Items Shipped to the Recipient: If you are ordering online or giving to someone who lives faraway, this will save you the money and hassle of having to forward the package.
Gift Giving
23. Decide How Much You’re Spending on Whom: Write out a list of everyone you plan to give a gift to, as well as the dollar amount you plan to spend on each person. Then, stick to this!
24. Cut Down on Your Giving List: Inevitably, there are those people on your list who you exchange gifts with out of sheer habit. Try having a conversation and suggest that you forgo gifts this year, and instead spend some time together.
25. Set Up a Secret Santa: For big groups, such as family or coworkers, a Secret Santa gift exchange can be a great way to make sure everyone gets a gift, without breaking the bank.
26. Give Cash Instead of Gift Cards: The same Deloitte survey found that gift cards are the top gift that shoppers plan to give, even though the No. 1 gift respondents said they’d like to receive is cash. And while gift cards are often lost, unredeemed or left with a small amount on them that goes unspent, with cash the gift recipient will get your full money’s worth.
Read the full article by Elyssa Kirkham from Go Banking Rates.
