photo credit: SpacePotato
The holiday’s are almost here and there are just a few shopping days left until Christmas. My wife and I have finished making the majority of our purchases with just a few small items remaining on our list. We have tried very hard this year to reduce our gift expenses and have looked for any alternative to help us meet our goals. Overall, I think we have done an excellent job and wanted to provide some of our shopping highlights to my readers. Hopefully there are some tricks or tips that some of you can use for years to come. I know we will be looking for more and more ways to save money next year!
The following list are examples of how my wife and I were able to stay within our family budget while still purchasing gifts for the holiday season.
- Store Rewards – Earlier this year we purchased our new dining room furniture at Cost Plus World Market. At the time we made the purchase, the furniture was on sale and the store was offering 10% off your purchase if you opened up a store credit card with them. To sweeten the deal, they also offered 0% interest for 12 months on your purchase and $15 in store rewards for every $300 you spent. We ended up saving a lot of money from opening up the card and also got $60 in store rewards. Just last weekend we used $30 of our store rewards to purchase gift items for my boss at work and a few other neighbors and co-workers. I didn’t really have these purchases figured in our gift budget, so using the rewards allowed us make these purchases. Without these rewards, we probably would have skipped purchasing gifts for my boss and co-workers this year.
- CVS Extra Care Bucks – As I mentioned many times before, I love to shop at CVS. It is my favorite place to shop and get deals. A few weeks ago, CVS had some tremendous deals for a 3-day period over the extended Thanksgiving weekend. We ended up spending around $16 total and got back almost $40 in CVS Extra Bucks from our purchases. We have since used these Extra Bucks to buy several stocking stuffers for our children and a few other people. The $16 spent got us several household items that we will use throughout the year as well as $40 worth of stocking stuffers. Not a bad deal!
- Gift Cards – I know there is growing concern about purchasing gift cards these days. Companies that are going out of business like Circuit City and Linens-N-Thins may not be able to honor their own gift cards anymore. However, there are still some safe ways to purchase gift cards for the holidays. A local outdoor shopping center in our area was selling gift cards last weekend for a 25% discount. These cards were good for the majority of the restaurants and stores in the development. By offering several options in stores and restaurants, you lower your risk of losing the value of the card. The nice thing about the deal we got was the 25% discount they offered for a one-day special. We purchased a $100 gift card for my parents to use, which cost us $77.50. There was a $2.50 card activation fee, but spending $77.50 for a card with $100 value is an excellent deal. The card will begin to lose value after 1-year but they should have no problem spending this money. In addition, we saved $22.50 to go towards other purchases and expenses.
- Discover Rewards – Earlier this year, I opened up a Discover Open Road credit card to use exclusively on gas purchases. The card will pay you back 5% on gas purchases up to $100 per month. So, if you spend $100 per month on gas, you can get $5 back each month. A few weeks ago, I received notification that if you spent $200 on non-gas and auto maintenance purchases in the month of December, you could get $10 cash back. We are taking advantage of this opportunity and used the card actually to buy the gift card mentioned above, along with other charges to get to the $200 requirement. These opportunities are not always available, but when the opportunity arises, you need to take advantage if you can.
- Citi Rewards – As most of my readers already know, I am a huge fan of using credit cards that pay you back in rewards. As I had mentioned previously, we redeemed several of our rewards that we had accumulated throughout the entire year to receive $150 in Target gift cards. Those gift cards have been used to buy many gifts for our children and a few others. The end result is that we got $150 in free money to use at a store that we like to shop at. This was actually planned by my wife and I throughout the entire year. We had a goal to build up the points on the card so that it could help us with our Christmas budget.
Those were just a few of the ways that we try and stretch the dollars that we spend. While those specific examples were just for this year’s holiday purchases, we use similar techniques throughout the entire year. I love to use the example I mentioned above about purchasing the gift card for my parents. We spent $77.50 out of pocket to buy the card. The end result was that we got a gift card worth $100 but at the same time we made a purchase on the card that would eventually get us another $10. So in theory, we will get about a $110 value for spending $77.50 along with another ~$130 or so on normal expenses. I would love to hear how others stretch their dollars.
What types of techniques do you use to stretch your spending?
Related posts:
- How to Save a Bundle on Holiday Gifts
- 4 Free Holiday Gift Ideas
- Best Gas Credit Cards
- Frugal, Homemade Holiday Gifts
- Inexpensive but Appreciated Gifts for College Students
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