The header photo was taken 10-11-2016 from my deck located south of Fairplay, Colorado at an elevation of 10,000 ft. The photo is of Buffalo Peak showing the snow overnight and a rainbow.
“Big Box” stores start earlier every year putting out their Christmas stock items. This year I have seen Halloween items which are put out about Labor Day and then the stores begin putting out Christmas items right after that. On line shopping for Christmas has already begun the larger stores are advertising by attaching ads to emails. Amazon and eBay have included gift items in their lead screens for Christmas.
Why do I mention this early introduction to available gift items for Christmas? Because if a family sets a budget and makes a list of the wanted items for Christmas gifts now, they can watch for good deals over a longer period of time. In many cases the items are cheaper in October than they might be in December when the demand is high. Also for example extremely popular toy and game items have been known to sell out before the December Christmas shopping rush.
PREPARING A CHRISTMAS BUDGET- (1) Prepare a name list of the names of those you think you will gifting. Don’t put what you want to buy for them at this point. (2) After you have the name list, think of some of the items you may want to buy without necessarily assigning the gift to a person (3) Do some research on the internet, determine what sources appear to have the best prices for the items you have listed Most of the chain stores have a full compliment of products listed on the web. A person can either buy the products on line or in the store. Many times it is cheaper to order from the store’s on line ad and often you can pick the product up at Customer Service at the store. Amazon and eBay have many new items that may be cheaper than in the mall stores. Recently Amazon is trying to do away with UPS and FedEx as shippers and is doing their own shipping, it is not working well, I have had two items this week that never arrived and they refunded my money, they are not sure if it is the Post Office or their new shipping procedure.
After you are satisfied that you have done a lot of research and know what gifts you would like to give to each person on your Christmas gift list, enter the items by the names and the estimated cost. After you have entered this information for each person on the Christmas gift list. Determine the estimated total cost of the gifts. If it is within you budget , great, if not determine what gifts are causing the cost to exceed the budget. Then either change the gift item or God forbid , drop some people from the list.
Giving cash gift cards issued by various popular companies and restaurants- Determine how much you are having to pay for the card and when the card expires. Some gift cards expire and have an expiration date on the card. If they are not used the company keeps the money. Gift cards can be sent by email along with an electronic greeting card through Amazon. There is no additional charge for some restaurant gift cards.
LAYAWAY IS STILL AN OPTION If you are giving larger items that you do not want to store until Christmas, most stores will hold it for you until just before Christmas so you can bring that large gift home on Christmas Eve.
This Month’s Income Opportunity
Most people are probably not aware that magazines want full articles, short stores, jokes, and stories about actual personal or family experiences. If you sign up with Real Writing Jobs it provides the names of the magazines which includes the Saturday Evening Post and many other publications that want articles. It explains how to submit the articles and gives the addresses for submission. The articles can be submitted on line.
There are numerous job opportunities for editing , SEO optimization of existing dialog, data entry, proofreading, blog writing, and personal assistants all listed in the Real Writing Jobs lists.
Click on this link Real Writing Jobs The cost for this service has a one time fee of less than $40 after a 50% discount coupon on the site.