Christmas in February :)

My friends and family make fun of me for lots of reasons. But the reason I am going to focus on today is they make fun of me for having Christmas bought by July! The other reasons…well, thats another blog on a different site

Sometimes I literally DO have it all done by July. But I must confess… I still have a few things left to buy and its already OCTOBER!!! Aggghhh!!!!!

Here’s how you do it…you start with the older people in your life FIRST. No sense in buying your 2 year old nephew clothes for next Christmas if by then he may be wearing a 6x. SO… you make a list. I am ALLL about list making. You simply write down every person in the WORLD that you will buy or do SOMETHING for at Christmas. My list goes like this: Ava, Jere, parents, then sisters, then brother in law and sis-in law, then ALLLL of the neieces and nephews, and the few friends I have left that I buy for.

You leave 2 lines for each persons name. The top line is for ideas for that person, the bottom line is what you actually bought. You should pretty much have this list going year round. The REASON being…you NEVER KNOW when you will run up on an awesome deal. Keep in mind from yesterdays lesson… its NOT a deal if you didn’t need it! Its not a bargain if you had to buy 3 of something to get it on sale. Don’t forget that part or you will find yourself in trouble.

Okay…make that list. There are 3 awesome times of the year to buy Christmas presents and NONE of them involve November or December.

#1-February

#2-August

January CAN be good but here’s the catch with January…it only works out good IF you plan to buy something “Christmassy” for someone for next year. If you do ornaments or Christmas decorations as Christmas presents then by ALL means knock yourself out. If you don’t…then wait. Its just one more month of waiting.

February…this is THE BEST TIME! I can’t stress that enough… I bought Dad, David, Jere, Sarah, Erica AND Noah all their Christmas gifts in February of this year. That is when stores(for whatever reason) begin marking down and seriously closing out winter clothes, movies that were popular around Christmas are now a fraction of the cost, cd’s are cheaper, and TOYS are cheaper. Now I wish that I could tell you about ALL of the awesome bargains I got this February but I can’t b/c is there a chance, although its slight, that my family will read this. But I will say this…I spent less than 40 dollars on EVERYTHING and the movies I got for Ava were classic, Disney movies …and I got her 3 of them! Not to mention everything else.

“But I don’t have the money in February!!!” So many people have told me that. Here’s the deal…you do. You save throughout the year. Will you have the money in December? Didn’t think so….nothing magically happens to your checkbook in December. You just DO it then because you have to. Well, you don’t! You are WASTING money! I can honestly say that when I racked up on an awesome bargain for my dad and brother in law in February… I felt bad. I looked at the original price and how few were left and I honestly felt BAD for the people that 2 months before paid 6 times more than I was about to. Don’t be one of those people that get pity! Be SMART!

AUGUST! Now this is another good time. And honestly I have no really good explanation for why that is. Back to school is going on so I guess its because of the new clothes and gizmos that are out at that time…they gotta have room for everything. For whatever reason…this time rocks as well, but not as much as February This is a great time to find deals at yard sales (which we will discuss later) but its a really good time to buy shoes. Shoe places live for August. Again…schools starting back up, SOME people are beginning to think about Christmas, and a season change is around the corner.

Be smart about your shopping. Shop all year.

Let’s look at this example…

If you were going to spend $50 on a family member for Christmas and wait until December…you would spend $50. IF you were going to spend $50 on a family member and try to shop during the year and get bargains then one of two things would happen.. You would actually spend $50 only buy a TON more stuff. OR, you would realize after buying 3 things that you had only spend $32 and had bought more than you EVER could have bought at full price.

Its not rocket science…its discipline and planning. So…give it a shot. You got so much to gain, or a ton to lose