It seems every year people start shopping earlier and earlier for Christmas. Last year I started at the beginning of October and had all the presents wrapped by the end of the month. This year I started even sooner to take advantage of a few outlets offering mid year sales.
Why Shop Earlier
Quilt Sets Queen
Shopping earlier has two main advantages - getting better deals and avoiding the holiday rush. But it has its disadvantages too. Many toy and game producers especially, only release their latest products very close to the holidays. This means that if you are going to shop in the middle of the year, you will not be able to get the latest items on the market. One way to get around this is to pre-order. In fact pre-ordering products might even fetch you discounts and free gifts.
But in many cases, if you keep your eyes open, you can get better deals during the slow or off season, retail wise. Many mobile phone producers release their latest models during the middle of the year. This means that previous models will be going at rock bottom prices about two months before the launch of the replacement.
Some people take shopping earlier to the extreme but shopping right after the holidays for the next holidays. Post holiday sales are sometimes even better than pre-holiday sales as departmental stores try to clear excess stock by offering ridiculous discounts.
Needful Adjustments
Moving up Christmas shopping a few months takes a little adjustment, budget wise, particularly during the first year of the timetable change. But it does not take much to get used to it. Its just a matter of keeping to a set schedule of putting a little money aside for presents.
The Gift Conundrum
Aside from making purchases during sales, buying in bulk can save you lots of cash. Its always good to break recipients into a few groups first - close family, family, close friends, friends, colleagues - you get the idea. Doing so allows you to organize your buying better. That said I only have two recipient groups - immediate family and others.
Obviously you would want to buy more personal and thoughtful gifts for the people closer to you. But for more generic gifts, I suggest pack shopping, which is just like pack hunting, only nicer.
Pack shopping here means gathering a couple of friends with similar shopping lists and then buying in bulk to take advantage of economies of scale. I usually pack shop with two other people when it comes to generic gifts. You will find that you can get really nice gifts like wine glasses at really great prices when you pack shop.