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Holiday Money Savers

So I was reading the New York Times the other day nodding my head as I scanned the headline, “To Buy Gifts, Mothers Do Without.” It’s not really news that moms sacrifice for their kids. But I found it interesting to read about surveys that quantify just how selfless moms plan to be this year with the country stuck in a stubborn economic downtown.

The story pointed out that 61% of mothers told questioners from the NPD Group that they would shop less for themselves this year compared to 56% of all women and 45% of men. Over the last several weeks in my role as Web Life Editor for Yahoo!, I ‘ve been spending some time looking for ways to help families save money this season using the web. Here are a few tips for moms looking to squeeze more out of family budgets. Perhaps you’ll still have a little left over to treat yourself to something nice, too. You deserve it.

Strategize Before You Sign On
We all know that shopping online saves time. But if you have a game plan in place, you can really stretch your dollar this season – especially because retailers are looking for any way to prop up the potentially dismal season. The number of discounts and deals you can find online is infinite and can be overwhelming. So before you dive in, figure out your budget and your gift list. A great resource is www.practicalmoneyskills.com. It’s a financial literacy website created by Visa that features a Holiday Spending calculator in which you can plug in your annual income and it will suggest a budget. You can also create a very useful Gift Log in which you enter each person’s name, the amount you plan to spend and the actual amount you spend when you purchase the gift. The log will calculate what you are laying out so you know if you are on target with your budget. Please visit : www.retailmenot.com
Comparison Shop
Once you have your list and spending priorities in place, start comparison shopping. It takes just a couple of minutes to search for prices by opening up a few browser windows on your computer. Start with the major shopping sites, including, shopping.yahoo.com, www.shopzilla.com, and www.shopping.com. Then plug in the specific item you want with as much detail possible. If you are searching for a generic pink cashmere sweater, you aren’t going to find the best deals. This works best with toys or electronics or name brand clothing or cosmetics. When I decided to look for the Disney Tinkerbell DVD I purchased at Target for $19.99, I found a range of 19 different online prices from a low of $13.98 on Amazon all the way to $21.79 on Deep Discounts.com (with a 25% off coupon). Be cautious, though, of ecommerce sites you have never heard of. You can quickly check on a site’s reputation by looking on the Better Business Bureau site, www.bbb.org.