It's Christmas again & before you know it the New Year will be here & December will seem like a dream. As you get older time does seem to speed up & it certainly seems as though Christmas comes around more quickly each year. You're just getting rid of the Christmas card credit card debts from last holidays & it's looming up again.
2010 has been hard financially for many people & there are a lot of families who won't have much to celebrate this year. It's always a good idea to be mindful of those less fortunate than ourselves & particularly at traditionally happy, family oriented times such as Christmas. No matter how tough things have been for our family this year we still donate what we can to a local charity which provides anonymous toys & gifts to poor families in our area. If you can't donate gifts or a little money then perhaps you can spare some time to assist with their work this year.
Along with many others we've had to be a lot more careful with money this year & so my Christmas challenge was to get through Christmas as pleasantly & economically as possible. It turned out not to be as difficult as it sounded.
I did some of my Christmas shopping online last year for the first time & it saved me a lot of time & effort. It also saved me money, although at the time that wasn't my biggest motivating factor for shopping online. It was more of an experiment as I wasn't too sure about purchasing on the internet & was still a little nervous about the whole idea.
I was converted the minute the gifts I had purchased arrived on my doorstep only days after ordering them. It was cold & the mall was a total nightmare with frenzied shoppers & I was thrilled to realise how easy it had been to get what I wanted without any of the usual stress of dealing with the Christmas shopping crowds.
This year with my budget firmly beside me I began looking for gifts & price comparison shopping online in mid November. Not only did I find a huge amount to choose from, which is more than I can say for walking around the shops each year trying to find Christmas gift inspiration, but I found some great prices as well.
The thing I realised this year is that there is a massive amount of retailers competing for your online business. Competition equals competitive pricing, so shopping online gives you a lot of benefits aside from the obvious ones when you're trying to avoid the crowded shops. Comparing prices is no effort at all & you know immediately if the item is in stock, which in the past I've found to be a major problem when shopping for toys at Christmas as they are often sold out when you arrive at the store. Then it's back to square one.
So this year 2010, my Christmas shopping efforts have been a big success. I've stayed within my budget, made no impulse purchases (that's also another good thing about online shopping) & will have everything delivered to my door well in time for Christmas day. I also purchased wrapping paper & gift cards at the same time!
If you haven't tried looking around online for the gifts you want or for some ideas for Christmas gifts then I suggest you give it a whirl. For early birds like me you can do your shopping at 6am while the rest of the family is asleep or late at night if you can't sleep.
Christmas gift shopping has never been so easy & stress free.
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