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- Create a Christmas notebook to keep organized. In this notebook, make a list of all the people you are buying gifts for (family, friends, co-workers, and teachers), gift ideas, sizes, and color preferences.
- Make a Christmas dinner menu with all of the recipes in one place. Save it, and use it each year to make your shopping list.
- Have you ever bought gifts throughout the year only to forget where you put them? Get a Rubbermaid tub and designate it as your gift box. Keep it in the closet or basement and you know right where to look. (You might want to keep the box a secret!)
- Use cash to buy your Christmas gifts! It is much harder to let go of cash than to pay credit. Research has shown that when consumers pay with credit, they tend to spend much more than they would if they paid cash.
- Plan! Plan! Plan! Do not go shopping without a plan. Decide what you want to buy before you set foot in a store. Retailers are pulling out all the stops to get you to spend money. Your best defense is to plan what you are going to buy, and how much you want to spend on each gift.
- To assist you in your planning, there is a free holiday spending worksheet at www.bankrate.com/dls/calc/holidaySpending.asp
- Do not equate how much you spend on someone with how much you love them. If this were true, only the rich would be capable of love. Focus on people, not things.
- Homemade gift baskets make great gifts. Dollar stores have many inexpensive gift ideas. Remember, presentation is important. Use colored cellophane and ribbon to decorate the basket. Using a theme, like a movie basket with free video rental, microwave popcorn, soda, and candy can spark your imagination.
- Read the fine print on gift cards. There may be hidden fees that reduce the amount of the gift. Buyers can be hit with purchase fees, activation fees and shipping fees. Users can be hit with inactivity and redemption fees. If you receive any gift cards, use them right away.
- What condition was your artificial Christmas tree in? If you need a new one, you can get it for almost half price after Christmas. But hurry, stores don’t keep them long.
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