Holiday Shopping Tips - How to Save During the Holidays Without Being a Scrooge

My top tips to survive and enjoy this holiday season include:

• Relax and simplify
• Plan your gift list
• Start watching for deals, sales and coupons now
• Buy or make an item or two each week
• Finish by Thanksgiving and enjoy the season!

How do you relax and simplify? First, start by adjusting your attitude. With the current economy, giving expensive gifts isn't necessary. Thoughtful, considerate gifts that show you know what the person enjoys do not have to be expensive. The key is to think of what the people in your life enjoy, and start making a list of gift ideas now.

Once you have your list of gift ideas, you can start checking gifts off the list by watching for sales on those items and buying one gift a week. If you decide to make thoughtful gifts, you can start making one at a time now. By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, you may be done with your holiday gift shopping and can actually enjoy the holidays!

You can also start watching for coupons at retail stores now so that you have more time to get big savings on your gift purchases. For example, national craft stores generally have one coupon per week for 40% off a single item in the advertising circulars from the Sunday newspaper. If you were to buy one bargain coupon item a week, you'd finish your holiday shopping without breaking the bank. Craft stores have all kinds of gift items, such as books, picture frames, vases, craft kits, decorations, cake decorating tools, and even toys. In many cases, craft stores accept each other's coupons so you could get more than one coupon deal per week if you gather more stores' coupons.

You can take this same approach with practically any store you like that has regular coupons such as household stores, department stores, bookstores and more. The key is simply starting early enough so that you can maximize your savings with coupons and sales gradually. You'll also be spreading your spending out over several weeks so you are less likely to go into debt when you spend smaller amounts at a time.

Other ideas for holiday gifts that you can start on now include:

• School fundraiser items: If you feel obligated to buy the typical school fundraiser items like gift wrap, coupon books, magazine subscriptions, or cookie dough, you may be able to kill two birds with one stone by giving those items as holiday gifts. Elegant gift wrap is a generous gift to someone who likes to give gifts, gourmet cookie dough is a great gift for a busy mom, magazine subscriptions are good all-around gifts and everyone can use an Entertainment coupon book these days.
• Discounted magazine subscriptions: Sites like www.bestdealmagazines.com have very inexpensive magazines, and some even cost less than $5 per year. Sign up for their deal alert and you'll get coupons for 15% off or more. I've given these as gifts many times because they are easy to order online, there is no shipping charge or sales tax. The only drawback is that they can take two or more months to start, so if you order in October, magazines should start arriving right after the holidays.
• Everyone likes to go out to eat, so you can give discounted restaurant gift certificates from Restaurant.com. They generally sell for 60% off face value (such as a $25 gift certificate at a cost of $10). At www.couponmom.com we always have extra coupons that will let you save even more, paying as little as $2 for a $25 certificate with an 80% off coupon. Tip: When you see the 80% off coupon come up, you would be smart to do your gift shopping then. These are great last-minute gifts if you weren't able to get organized this year because you can order them online and print them immediately or email them to your gift recipient. You can buy a general gift certificate from the Gift Center on their site, and your recipient can redeem it for specific restaurants in their area.

Stephanie Nelson is The Coupon Mom and has taught shoppers how to save with Strategic Shopping and coupons since 2000. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The CBS Early Show, Fox News, CNN and many local news broadcasts teaching her savings strategies with her free website CouponMom.com.