Start Your Christmas Shopping Now and Save Money!

Imagine it is December 1^st and you are not broke this year! The gifts are all bought and paid for, wrapped and ready to be given. Is it that simple? It is and I am going to show you how!

Step # 1 ~ Make A List

Make a List of all the people you must buy gifts for. Be sure you write down everyone that you need to purchase for AND add a few miscellaneous gifts, for those people who always seem to drop in at the last minute with an unexpected gift!

Step # 2 ~ Set a Budget and Stick To It!

Decide on a Budget. For example, if you have ten people to buy gifts for and you know you are going to spend between twenty and fifty dollars on each gift, you should set your budget somewhere in the middle of your price range, say thirty dollars per gift. Then multiply that number by the number of people you need to buy for, so for this example your budget would be three hundred dollars.

Can you imagine, getting all your holiday shopping done for three hundred dollars! I sure will not be able too! Anyway, three hundred dollars is your total budget for all your shopping, so now you need to figure out how many weeks there are until Christmas.

We'll say there are seventeen weeks until Christmas for this example. Now divide your budget by how many weeks there are left. If we divide three hundred by seventeen we come up with seventeen dollars and sixty five cents. So that amount is our weekly budget. Each week spend that much towards your gifts. If you want to shop only once a month, divide your budget by how many months there are left between now and Christmas. Here we have five months left, so each month we would have sixty dollars to spend on gifts.

Step # 3 ~ Scour the Internet!

The Internet offers a website for almost every major retailer in the world as well as all the little guys. Be sure to spend some time searching the internet for sales, it's amazing the things you can find at more than half off what you would pay for it in the store.

When you are searching be sure to add the keyword "coupon codes" to your search, there are codes out there for Free Shipping, Percentages off your purchase and more, for almost every major store! There are also many great stores online that offer items at wholesale prices to the public as well! Really take your time checking out these places, as you can find really beautiful gifts at incredibly low prices!

Step # 4 ~ Shop the Newspaper!

Make time on Sunday to read the Newspaper flyers. The big sales are always advertised in the paper, so you will know when you have the opportunity to save big! Occasionally, major retailers offer coupons for a percentage off your purchase in the newspaper as well, be sure to grab these!

Step # 5 ~ Catalog Shop!

Catalogs are a great place to find unique items, that most people won't recognize as having come from Wal-Mart or JCPenney. Usually catalogs offer Free Shipping when you spend a certain amount, make sure you read the fine print in the magazine, that's usually where you'll find these offers.

Now see, that wasn't so hard was it? It's amazing how much you can save when you purchase your gifts ahead of time. In this article we just bought gifts for ten people for three hundred dollars! That's amazingly cheap and we did it because we followed the steps above! Good Luck with your shopping, may you have cash in your pocket on December first!