Although you may feel it’s a little late to save for Christmas, there are a few easy ways to quickly bulk up your holiday shopping budget.
I know we’re just getting into the full swing of fall, but Christmas isn’t far behind! If you already have your money saved for the holidays and are ready to check off the items on your gift lists, that’s great! If you haven’t even started putting money aside, no worries…here are three ways to quickly bulk up your Christmas budget.
Start a “working” holiday shopping fund
Although you may feel it’s a little late to save for Christmas, luckily (at the time of this post) there are still 11 weeks before the big day. If you could manage to put just $50 away each of those weeks, you’ll end up with over $500 for your shopping. That’s a good chunk of change, especially when you purchase gifts on sale. Now I’m not suggesting that you wait until the last week to shop…this would be more of a working fund that you would pull money from as you find deals on the gifts you need.
Earn some Christmas bucks with Swagbucks
Another great way to rack up some Christmas cash is with Swagbucks. Swagbucks is a site where you earn points (called SB) for things you’re probably doing online already like searching, watching videos, discovering deals, and taking surveys. Then you take those points (1 SB is worth a penny) and exchange them for gift cards to places like Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart, Target, or even for PayPal cash.
Unlike a lot of other rewards sites, you can cash out at any time, and they have gift cards for as little as 300 SB (The $3 Amazon gift card – every little bit helps). I can’t even tell you how many Amazon gift cards I’ve gotten using this program. I’m sure a stack of those would come in handy this holiday season!
Shop with layaway as you save for Christmas
One way to stay within your budget or grab some gifts while you’re still working on your holiday savings, is to take advantage of layaway programs. This is a great way to get the big ticket items on your holiday gift list. When you find a deal at a store with layaway you can take advantage of paying for it over time.
Popular stores offering layaway this year include… (click the store link for details on their layaway program)
Sometimes you’ll also find special financing options available online. For example, last year I purchased my kids’ Kindles with a special 6-month interest free financing promotion that Amazon was offering. So keep your eyes peeled for those special deals too.
As you can see, even if you’re a little behind, there’s still plenty of time to save for the holidays using one (or all) of these methods 😉
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