Do you love or hate Christmas? I personally love it!! My tree is up in November, hey you spent the money you may as well enjoy the tree for longer than one month!! My husband loves it too (amazing hey!) he actually went out and bought like 10 trees so we have a forest – only one tree is special and is decorated and visited by Santa but all the rest add that great Christmassy feel!!
My tips for Christmas shopping is start early
Last year I purchased water guns for all my nieces, nephews and brothers-in-law for only $4 during winter! These guns were worth $30-40 new and by the time Christmas came around (and it was summer) they were back in the shops again at full price!!! Didn’t I look like a great Aunty buying these expensive presents!!
Keep on the lookout for items that may be discontinued but still look like fun! Search through the toy items at the stores like Target and Kmart. Sometimes items might be lost in the stuffed toy section and be reduced in the computer. I purchased a Barbie fairies outfit for only 0.04 cents once that I found hidden behind other toys!!
Have a list and write the names of all the people you need to buy presents for at Christmas and when you do get that bargain write the present next to their name – that way you’ll know you have something for them already!
Purchase goods at the Christmas sale for the next year. We all know to buy our decorations, cards and wrapping paper in the after Christmas sales but what about other items? In January I purchased chocolates for half price that don’t expire until June next year!! I have put them away in my Christmas containers so when I break them out in December I will already have choccy’s waiting to eat or gift (the kids can even use them to hand out with their Christmas cards)!
Look through Crazy Clark’s & Sam’s Warehouse! We all like to give and receive nice gifts and unfortunately these stores don’t conjure up those images of quality gifts, but dont’ write them off. One year I got Spiderman web throwers for only $14.95 each and the exact same toys were in Kmart for twice that much!! So every now and then they get some good stuff so check it out, and if you are able to get it in the middle of the year most people won’t even know where you got it from!!
But if shopping early is a real turn off and you don’t want to think about Christmas early let alone shop early wait until the week before Christmas, the shops tend to reduce items the few days before Christmas – there isn’t always alot of decroations items left but hampers and the like are always handy to have around (especially if you have an unexpected relative pop in for a visit!!). I remember one year Kamrt had 50% all Barbie items the week before Christmas – a bargain if you have little girls to buy for!!
If you see a decoration you really want you are best to buy it in those few days before Christmas as it usually is already 50% off, but if it isn’t I hope you are one of the lucky few that can get to the after Christmas sale and buy soemthing that at 50-60% off, that isn’t broken!
Summer clothes are aways on special around January so that is also a good time to put some away for the kids for next summer and Christmas presents – especially babies who don’t care what they look like!!
I store all my pressys in a container in my wardrobe up high in the hopes the kids will not look there – I always warn them that I can return them if they look but this isn’t so easy now that Kmart and Target have changed there return policy to 28 days, but Big W hasn’t done that yet so…
Load up with Xmas Gifts early
I love christmas too..One year I went crazy on half price xmas lights and now I have enough for a lifetime. My husband cringes when I ask him to put the lights up…
I also bought loads of xmas decorations for next to nothing. I have so many I thought I would resell some on Ebay, but I will wait for xmas time for that!!! They will pay more then.