Curb Holiday Spending

It is truly amazing how many articles, news stories and blogs you find now - all about budgeting, all about saving money. When we all first walked through the doors of our preview lesson many of us were interested in saving money, but we were weird. Now being weird is normal. Amen to that!

I don't know about you, but many of our debts stem from spending too much at Christmas and falling into the trap of "I am tired, I waited until the last minute to go shopping - I just need two more things and I am done." I was a teacher, I had virtually no time to plan Christmas and no time to pay attention to prices. I would wait until the last minute and spend one long, miserable day shopping. I am not exactly the shopping type, so I would choose a few stores and just attack my list. Only to find that I spent way too much and lost my holiday spirit, due to being stressed or worse yet, being around other grumpy, stressed shoppers.

This article basically outlines what we have already been taught from the class, but thought I would pass it along.

In addition:

1. www.woot.com An online one day, one item sale site - great deals, check it out every day for steals on anything from wine to electronics.

2. www.amazon.com Many of you use this anyway, but for us - I check out several websites and price around. This site offers free shipping at times and other holiday deals.

3. www.craigslist.com Okay, I used to stay away from this site due to the racy crowds, but you can find a good deal on slightly used items. (We post some of our stuff there and its free, unlike Ebay).

4. Keep your receipts and check periodically on prices - you can take the item and your receipt back and get the difference! I do that quite often! And make sure you do the work for rebates - these companies count on you to be lazy or wait until it is too late to turn in the paperwork! Don't forget!

Blessings!