The post is to wish you and your family happy holidays. My family and I hope you have a peaceful and happy holiday.
Being the Holidays I wanted to give away some shopping and tips on what to look out for during the holiday season.
There are so many options these days for gifts and presents. The options are practically endless and there is always something you can find for everyone.
That said, you can still get great gifts without spending a truckload of money or hurting your credit:
Create Your Game Plan
The first thing you want to do is create your holiday spending budget. Too often, people go to the mall without determining their limit on the amount they want to spend. This can easily turn into overspending. It is fun to get gifts for those you care about, but we don’t want to hurt our bank accounts because of it.
Become a Shopping Ninja
You can be a shopping ninja with the technology that is out there now. There are many daily deal sites that give discounts of 40% – 80% the regular price. If you know where to look, you can find 3-4 gifts for the price of one!
I like to use an iPhone application (also available on Android phones) called Deal Drop that pulls the deals from hundreds of sites and gives it all to you in one spot. It includes all the big ones like Groupon and LivingSocial along with the smaller sites. Deal Drop is great because it has deals for everything from power tools to baby clothes.
Be a New-Credit Grinch
Be very careful before you say yes to getting that new department store credit card. It may sound nice to get another card that gives you a small discount or allows you a month or two to pay, but there are many drawbacks:
- The store will have to pull up your credit report and credit Inquiries are 10% of your credit score.
- When approved for the card, there is a good chance they will set your limit close to how much you are spending. That means your balance will be close to your limit which affects your credit utilization ratio, which is 30% of your credit score!
- Unless you pay off the account in full the next month (when consumers are the most cash strapped from holiday spending), you will have high interest charges. Those high interest charges that could continue for months or even years will heavily outweigh any discount they initially gave. (The banks know this and do it on purpose to make more money off of us)
I hope these holiday & credit tips help you enjoy the holiday with your family and save you money at the same time!