Christmas Shopping for the Frugal Shopper
Some of us are very careful when it comes to money. We realize how hard we worked for it and would want to spend it only on items that offer the utmost value. For frugal or smart shoppers, Christmas shopping can be a little difficult as they are not used to making so many purchases at one point of time.
The following tips will help a frugal shopper to get through the Christmas shopping expedition without much of a hassle.
• Shop online – If you are not much of an Internet person, now might be a good time to get your feet wet with the online marketplace as there are a lot of deals available on the Internet. Some of the deals will never be found at a store. The Internet stores are able to sell for cheaper because they cut out the middle man in the form of a retailer and thus save a lot of costs. They pass on a part of the costs to you as a discount. However, when shopping online, you need to make sure that they are always buying from an encrypted website with proper security layers for its payment system.
• Make a budget – You are probably already in the practice of sticking to a budget if you are a frugal shopper but a budget is all the more important during Christmas shopping. You might be tempted to buy a lot of attractive gifts for your loved ones which can get very expensive. A budget will allow you to focus on your goals.
• Pay cash – Using credit cards to pay for Christmas gifts can be a bad mistake. Some people pay with credit cards and then clear the balance before interest starts to accrue. This is fine as you might get some reward points for using the card. But if you allow the interest to accumulate, you will find that a $500 balance will quickly multiply itself to $700 or even more depending on how slowly you pay off your balance. You can also use your checking accounts online at a lot of websites now thus allowing you to stay away from your credit cards even when shopping online.
• Use coupons and discounts – If you are more of a store shopper, you will notice attractive deals advertised in newspapers and magazines. The discounts can get pretty steep sometimes and you will benefit a lot by taking advantage of them.
• Look for hot deals – Get on the Internet and visit popular shopping websites such as to see what products are selling like hot cakes. Every major shopping website will always highlight the fastest moving products or the hottest deals prominently on their home page. By checking this out, you will be able to decide what products are hot as well as on a discount.
• Gift cards – If you really want to simply your Christmas shopping, you can just buy everyone a gift card in a certain denomination. This will also save you money in the sense that you do not have to drive around from store to store or maybe even take a day off from work at the last minute to finish your Christmas shopping. Just make sure that you buy your gift cards from a company like Discover or Visa so they can be used in a lot of places.
I hope the tips above will be of some help to you to keep your Christmas shopping expenses on leash later this year.
