Stretch Your Holiday Budget

With so many people on a shoestring budget, many of us barely can afford necessities, not to mention making a little money stretch for holidays and special occasions we put off until the last minute, or have to set up a special budget just so our children will not be left out.

Creative shopping can help prepare you now for what is to come in the future. The following tips can save you both time and angst when it comes to making your hard-earned money go a little further.

• Buy Halloween costumes for next year now. Wal-Mart in Jacksonville, Arkansas has costumes for adults and children on clearance for 90 percent off. Twenty dollar costumes are two dollars, and there are plenty still left to choose from. Just make sure you go up a size or two, depending on your child's growth pattern.

• Dollar Tree stores have everything you will need to make your own custom Christmas wreaths and home décor. Not only do they have the premade wreaths, but they also sell rolls of garland you can wrap around a premade wreath to fill it in to your heart's desire of fullness. Everything in the store is one dollar or less, and the decorations are also sold in this season's trendy colors. I was able to purchase some items for fifty cents, but nothing exceeds one dollar in price.

• Buy gift cards online. Some gift card exchange websites can offer you incredible savings by selling select gift cards at well below face value.

• Buy your Holiday turkey or ham early and save big. Some supermarkets sell turkeys two weeks before Thanksgiving for less than one dollar per pound the first of November, but the same bird will cost two dollars per pound, or more, closer to Thanksgiving.

• Shop for birthday and anniversary gifts for the upcoming year this year during the Christmas sales. If you wait two months to buy the same item, it will be marked up to full price, so buy now and get a great discount.

• Use websites like Overstock.com to shop for the Holidays and save both gasoline and time. No matter what it is, Overstock.com has it, and will ship it to for less than a gallon of gasoline. The shipping rate as of right now on Overstock.com is one dollar for your entire order. If you don't have a bank account, or credit card, don't despair. Wal-Mart sells reloadable Visa debit cards for three dollars, and you can use it to shop online.

• Plan ahead, and buy Christmas cards for the following year right after Christmas. Last year, I bought packages of foil and glitter Christmas cards for one dollar and stored them. Decorations and paper products won't spoil, so save big this year and spend money where you need it most next year. Halloween decorations never go out of style, adding one or two new elements per year can give you a fresh change without having to buy a whole new collection.

• Take advantage of liquidation sales. A lot of small businesses are having financial trouble, and will sell merchandise for barely above what they paid for it, which is still below retail price.

• Salvage what you can each year on items that will not change. Ornament colors may change from year to year as trends come and go, but your artificial evergreen tree and garland won't. Pack it away in plastic totes, so that rodents won't chew through the cardboard to make nests with the needles. If you use classic colors like silver or winter white ornaments, those colors can be incorporated with trendy colors each year, so you won't have to buy so many new items to decorate with.

No matter how you decorate or shop, plan ahead. Watch morning news shows like Today or Good Morning America to get tips on what national chains are having sales earlier than others. Wal-Mart and Target stores are already marking items down with Black Friday pricing before Thanksgiving. Sears and K Mart stores do offer layaway, but the longer you wait, the less time you have left to pay on your items.