Top 5 Christmas Shopping tips to save money on your Holiday shopping.

With Christmas Right around the corner, I know we all have Christmas Gifts and Christmas shopping on the brain. We all want the best deals without having to spend too much money. We’ve learned through necessity how to be frugal around Christmas shopping. After three years of being college students with minimal income, and three kids; we’ve learned a few tricks. And that is what I want to give you today! Our tricks to getting great deals and how to save on Christmas Shopping, but all without driving yourself bananas driving around town looking for the best deals or clipping coupons.

Our Christmas Shopping tips may include affiliate links. If you use them you will still get the best deal possible for you! And I will then get a few pennies in return for sending you their way! 🙂

Save on Christmas Shopping

1. Know exactly what you want. Browse and research ahead of time. If you want an electronic know exactly what brand is best, size, special dimensions or settings. Do your research now before the deals hit so you know what to look for. Find out how much each item usually sells for so you know when a deal is actually a good deal. Last year we wanted to buy a game. It’s Black Friday deal was only $10 off the regular price. By the time we added in shipping it wasn’t really a deal at all.

Also make your list ahead of time before all the sales hit. Know exactly what you are going to get for each person on your list. And then Stick to your list.

2. Shop sales – Black Friday, Cyber Monday. A great way to save money is to utilize the sales that business put out for the consumers. The biggest sales of the year tend to be Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

3. Use Brand discounts & cash back.  Utilize cash back sites like Kohl’s cash options. Watch for when your favorite stores have deals where you can get store credit or extra savings. Sometimes (especially around the Holidays) Kohl’s will have sales where you can earn Kohl’s cash for every $25-100 you spend. It’s a great way to get your money to stretch even farther.

The Target RedCard is another brilliant way to save. It hooks directly to your debit account. So then when you use it; it is just like you are using your debit card. But you are getting an extra 5% off! And always use the Cartwheel app! It’s FREE and so easy! Just use the scan button and scan each item as you put it into your cart. If there is an extra online coupon deal it will apply to your account. Then at check out just have the cashier scan your phone app barcode. It applies automatically! I just love saving that way! My last shopping trip I saved over $20 just by using the cartwheel app and Target RedCard together. No other sales.

4. Use Slickdeals to find the great deals. If you know exactly what you are using, use one of my favorite sites Slickdeals. You can set it up for keywords. When there is a sweet deal on it; then it will email or text you letting you know! This is how I got my Kitchenaid for $300 off regular price! And how I got my DSLR for half price. This is also the place to go when you like to use Kohl’s Cash deals. They list those all the time! It saves you from having to hunt out the deals; they come to you!

5. Always use Ebates! Have you  heard of Ebates before? I discovered them last December in the middle of our Christmas Shopping. Man do I wish I had found them at the beginning! It is basically a simple coupon and cashback site! You visit their site, find a coupon deal or store you want to shop at. Then click over to that store from ebates. It will log your shopping experience and then gives you a % cash back of all you spend at the site. Last Chrismtas the Husband and I ended up getting $70 cashback from Ebates just by doing our Christmas shopping through the site. Things we were buying anyway! Including school clothing we needed to replace for the kids due to wear or outgrowing the clothes.

When you use all these together; you can end up saving a lot of money! Let me tell you about our awesome experience last year.

I wanted to get the boys some LEGO toys for Christmas. But as you know they are pricey. Well; I knew exactly what I wanted to get them. LEGO Ninjago deals. I used those keywords in Slickdeals. I got notified that there was a hot deal on Target for Cyber Monday.

So when the sale started, I visited Ebates, searched for Target Deals then went to Target through the Ebates site. I bought the LEGO sets I wanted at over 50% off. Plus I then got 10% cashback on everything I spent at Target through Ebates. Not to mention the extra discounts I got for using my Redcard at Target too!

I ended up with over 6 LEGO Ninjago Sets that normally sell for $25-50 each; for less than $80 total (including shipping)! And all that without clipping a single coupon or fighting the crowds.

So to help you save money make sure you sign up for Ebates, take advantage of Kohl’s Cashback and Target RedCard and use Slickdeals!

How do you save on Christmas Shopping?