Five Reasons to Shop Online This Holiday Season

It’s the most wonderful time of the year according to the famous holiday tune. So why are so many of so stressed out? Maybe you’re spending too much time in the wrong places. Here are some very convincing reasons to shop online only this holiday season.

Beat the Crowds

To truly beat the crowds when you shop in stores, your best bet is to go before 10 a.m. or after 8 p.m. When you shop online, you do it at your convenience. You can browse as long as you’d like, and there’s nobody in your way or crawling around you to grab the item you want. The only screaming kids are your own (and you can send them to their rooms), and you don’t have to fight for a parking spot either.

Locate Hard-to-Find Items Faster and Easier

If you are old enough to remember the Cabbage Patch doll craze, you know it was the beginning of mob mentality holiday shopping. This year, one of those items appears to be the Lego Creationary board game. Three places that had it in stock yesterday are completely out of stock today. I consider myself the queen of online research, and I can’t find it anywhere unless I’m willing to pay $60 to $100. I’m not. But here’s the deal, I can order it online and it will ship to me when it comes back in stock. I can also have the online stores e-mail me as soon as they have it back in stock. Granted, there is no guarantee any of these places will have it by Christmas, but I can always wrap a picture of the game and tell my son it’s on the way when he opens it Christmas morning.

Save Time and Money

I purchased six gifts tonight in about 30 minutes and got free shipping. I didn’t have to get out in the chilly or waste gas or run from store to store for an item nobody has in stock. I got to eat in my own home, which saves more money. Perhaps best of all, I don’t have a bunch of gift items cluttering my house when I’m still surrounded by boxes of Christmas decorations that have to go up. The gifts will arrive in about 10 days, long after I am finished decorating.

Truly Find the Best Price

When you’re in the store, you don’t know what impulsive sales the other stores may be having at the same time. Tonight, I placed at item in my online shopping cart and continued looking for other things. By the time I was done, the price of that first item in my cart had gone down. That never would have happened it if was standing in line at a store.

Gift Wrapping

How much money do you spend on wrapping paper, tape and gift tags? Why not spend the same amount of money and have the gifts arrive already wrapped? Do the math. It just may work to your advantage, and talk about a time savings.

You can save yourself many hours of time and stress by shopping online. That is my wish for you this holiday season.

Navigating the Jungle – Black Friday and Cyber Monday

The holiday shopping season seems to get earlier and earlier. This year, the Halloween candy wasn’t even in the hands of trick-or-treaters when retailers started posting their Black Friday ads online. For those of you not familiar with the jargon, Black Friday is what retailers call the day after Thanksgiving – the official start of the holiday shopping season. In recent years, retailers have added Cyber Monday to the mix. That is the Monday following Thanksgiving weekend, when people return to work and often spend considerable time shopping online.

Both of these days can be huge money savers for shoppers. They also can be filled with stress and a lot of wasted time if you don’t know how to navigate the crowds or the conditions often applied to your purchases. Here are some tips to help you navigate the jungle.

Read the fine print before you shop. It may sound strange, but extreme sales usually come with extreme stipulations. If you have your eye on a deeply discounted laptop, tablet or other electronic device, getting in line 10 hours early does not guarantee you will get it. Some stores only have a handful – literally four of five of the one item you want. Know this information before you go, even if you have to call the store to ask. Pay attention to anything you may have to buy with it, as well. And, be sure you know which deals are available only in the store and which may be available online, as well. In many cases, these deals are in-store only.

Shop with a plan. My friend calls this divide and conquer. She and another friend of hers make a list of everything they want, then they go their separate ways, calling or texting each other periodically to check in. You have a better chance to get the deal when you have a team of people working on your behalf.

Use the Internet and social media to your advantage. In this day and age of social media, there is nothing you shouldn’t know before you shop Black Friday or Cyber Monday:

BlackFriday.com

BlackFriday.net                                                                                                                                                                                                          

CyberMonday.com

CyberMonday.net

Some of these sites also have Facebook pages to complement their websites, and, of course, you can visit the websites of any store for their Friday and Monday deals. My personal favorite deal site is the Live Fabulous Facebook page. Jodi Furman is the owner of this page and will spend all day online Friday and Monday posting hot deals that will go fast, but you won’t know about them without her advice.

Don’t forget daily deal sites. Groupon, Amazon Local Deals, Living Social, Crowd Savings, Moolala.com and many others will be offering some great buys on Friday, Monday and throughout the holiday season.

One final thing to remember is to know the regular retail price before you start shopping. You can’t possibly know if you are getting a great deal when you don’t how much you would normally pay for something.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Shopping!

Surviving Thanksgiving on a Budget

Holidays can kill a budget, and it’s not just the gift giving holidays. Thanksgiving may be the biggest food holiday there is, and food, as you know, costs money. I remember times when I would buy the food for my Thanksgiving menu and then wonder what money I would use to buy my normal groceries. Leftovers don’t last forever.

It takes some work and a little creativity, but you can do Thanksgiving on a budget. Here are some tips to help you keep your spending in check.

Limit the mouths you feed. The more the merrier is a nice concept, but it’s not the most affordable option. If you normally feed a larger crowd, cut back. Or, cook dinner for your immediate family and invite the extended family and friends for dessert and coffee during the football game.

Make your menu more affordable. Just about every local grocery store has turkeys on sale right now, but many of those sales come with conditions, like spending a specified amount in other groceries. If this does not fit into your budget, check the price of a turkey breast. Or, get packages of drumsticks and thighs. If you don’t like turkey, check into a pork loin or beef roast that may be more affordable. It is standard to plan for a half pound of meat per person. Also, cut back on the number of side dishes you serve or the number of desserts you prepare.

Do the math. Many grocery stores are offering pre-cooked Thanksgiving meals for a flat rate. Check to see if these are cheaper. They certainly save time, but time is money, which means you probably will pay more for this option. You won’t know until you do the math.

Ask your guests to bring food. If you’re determined to have a large crowd at your house for Thanksgiving, ask each guest to bring something specific, like a side dish, dessert or beverages. If you only have to buy the turkey, Thanksgiving is much more affordable.

Have dinner somewhere else. Perhaps this is your year to eat Thanksgiving dinner at another family member’s home. If someone invites your family to Thanksgiving dinner, consider accepting their invitation. Contribute to the dinner with a side dish or dessert, or offer to do the dishes as a token of thanks for their generosity.

Go to a restaurant. I have a friend whose family always goes to the same restaurant for Thanksgiving. It’s their tradition. Instead of having a huge crowd at your house, suggest everyone meet at a restaurant and pay their own way. Just be sure to make reservations.

It’s okay to cut back, even for Thanksgiving. It’s also okay to ask for help. Your family and true friends will understand, especially if you create a win-win situation for all parties involved. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Buy One Get More Free and Feed Another Family

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of each year. In fact, this is when my husband and I host our annual holiday party. My husband, a Louisiana native, smokes several turkeys and makes an authentic Cajun gumbo. I bake at least a half dozen specialty desserts from scratch. We ask our friends to bring their favorite holiday side dishes and that completes the meal. It’s a 13-year tradition that saves us money, but still lets everyone have a great time with great food and great company.

But what about the families who have nothing? Sadly, there are families in our own neighborhoods that will struggle to put a meal on the table on Thanksgiving Day. What about families who struggle to buy food on a regular basis? There's a way you can help feed families without spending extra money. Will join me in helping feed a family this year?

It’s really very simple. Take advantage of Buy One Get One (or two or three) Free sales. Looking through the grocery store ads today, I saw a bunch of these specials. Albertsons has both Tilapia and pork tenderloins on sale. When you buy one package, you get three free. That’s four pounds of fish or four pork tenderloins for the price of one. You could keep two and still give two away at no extra cost. Albertsons actually has several buy one get one or more free sales this week: ground sausage, beef roasts, steaks, pork ribs, bread, soft drinks and more. Keep one or more for yourself and donate the others to a food pantry, church or even a family you know that is struggling. It really makes a difference.


A friend of mine gets a side of beef every year from her in-laws for Christmas. Her small family never goes through all of it. This year, when my husband and I struggled, she let me shop in her deep freeze (and then put a bunch more in my bag when I wasn’t looking). If the items you would normally buy give you an opportunity to get one or more free, it’s costing you nothing to give one or more away. You have to buy the first one to get the rest free, so why not give your extra item(s) to someone who can’t even afford to buy the first one?

Now I realize this requires a little effort, because you have to know where the sales are. The sales ads come to my house every week. If you don’t receive them, you can go to individual grocery store websites to view them. Time is something we all have. Money isn’t. Food isn’t. Shelter isn’t. If you have these things, please take even five minutes of your day to figure out where you can shop and feed a family for free.