Saving Big Bills

I know that this post is a little late, but I promise that it will be educational to those of you who want need to save money. We spent $625 on Christmas gifts in 2012. If we had paid full retail for those gifts then we would have spent $1,758. Holy Moly! That's a savings of $1,133!

How did we do it you ask? Well, it was VERY difficult. So, follow along closely and take very detailed notes ... we paid attention to the store sales, store emails, and we used coupons. Yup, that's it. Simple as can be!

Most of us know that retailers have great deals between Thanksgiving and Christmas so we just kept an eye on what sales our target stores were having. We also got on the email list of our target stores so that we could take advantage of the coupons that they send out. Trust me, they send out a LOT of coupons during the holidays. We noticed that quite a few of our coupons needed to be used the weekend of Dec 8th-9th so we asked my parents to watch the girls for a few hours so that we could take care of business. We did 95% of our shopping in four hours on Dec 8th. That's only 17 days before Christmas, but that's just how things worked out this year. We usually start around October, but we just weren't seeing great deals until closer to Christmas time so we waited it out. I'll be honest, the wait stressed me out because I like to be wrapping presents by then, but it all worked out for the best.


2013 - This year we are already doing things differently. I've noticed through emails that I get from my favorite coupon site and from the knowledge of friends, that a lot of stores clearance out items in January. I assume it's stuff that they loaded up on, but didn't sell over the holidays. So, I made a list and a budget for everyone that we will buy a birthday or Christmas present for this year and I've already started shopping. This is definitely a record for me ... multiple gifts already purchased in the month of January?! Sweet! And by shopping, I mean that I simply check out the clearance aisles of the stores I'm already going to. I'm not making special trips.

I guess my biggest piece of advice would be to make a list of who you want to buy for, set a budget for that gift, stick to that budget, and look for deals throughout the year. Don't buy something just because it's a great deal. Have someone in mind for that gift or don't buy it ... unless it's just ridiculously cheap. I'm excited to see how much we will save this year. Good luck!

Hebrews 13:5 - "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have"