Helping Your Holiday Budget Series: Being prepared & Organized before & During your Holiday Shopping.

How many of us have gone into the store (and especially on Black Friday) and seen HOT deals and grabbed them because they were HOT? I know I am not alone in saying that I have done that and one year it was not a good year in our house when Hubby found out, because I ended up putting stuff on the credit card to finish up the needed shopping. Thankfully that incident never repeated itself and my excuse is that it was our daughters second Christmas and hubby was coming home from being deployed  and I really wanted to make Christmas extra special. In the end hubby forgave me (of course he would he got a PS3 that year)  but really those things are not good excuses. But it taught me a great lesson, be prepared for my shopping. There are many things, even things that do not involve money itself that I do to save money during the holidays. The rush of deals and wanting to have a fabulous Christmas (or the holiday that you celebrate) can really make one spend more money then they ever intended to.

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Now it is to early to start shopping early this year because we have less then 2 months until the big holiday is here but there are quite a few things that you can do now to save a lot of money with your holiday shopping this year:

• Make a list of everyone that you need to buy for and write down a few ideas of things that you want to get them(this is more so fo family members other then the kids) this way when you see something that would make a great gift at a great price you can buy it and cross that person off your list. Having a few options that you want to get someone will give you an easier time finding a gift if you are totally specific.
• With the kids shopping- Write down what you know they want, ask them. Don’t try and guess you can make it fun by having them write letters to Santa and pull out the fun Toy catalogs that are arriving in the mail and cut the pictures out to make their list. No guessing saves you time and from wasting your money on a toy that they do not want and won’t play with.
• Set a budget- Know how much money you want to spend per person on your list and how much per each of your kids. Keep track as you buy things with how much you have spent so you do not go over budget
• Keep a list of everything you buy (if you have kids that can read make sure you hide this list 🙂 ), everytime you make a purchase write down what it was and who it was for this way you don’t miss anyone, but extra gifts or spend money you do not need to.
• Keep everything you buy together as much as possible, this lessens the chance of forgetting where you put something.
• On black friday know what you are going to buy. Have a list for what you are looking for so you avoid the thrill spending and get what you really need so you are saving money instead of wasting it!