Officially, recession has been over for 18 months now and the US economy is recovering fast. Still, unemployment rates are high and businesses have not reached pre-recession levels. In such times, it’s wise to plan your holidays or vacation carefully. Here are some tips on how to enjoy your holidays without spending too much.
The first thing you need to do is to make a budget for your holidays. Take everything into account for the budget – shopping, trips, eating out, movies and other things that you want to do on your holiday. Make separate provision for things that you really want to do. Then keep some extra amount for various activities that you might like to undertake as your holiday progresses.
After you have a budget, you must try to have fun in the most cost effective manner. For example, look for various holiday season offers. You can take advantage of sales such as those on Black Friday.net. You can also look for various discount coupons online and offers on websites such as DealHunting.com.
The holiday’s season comes with a long list of people who have to be given gifts. Remember that it is not important that your gifts be expensive. Your gifts should show that you have put some thought into them. Therefore, you can create interesting scrapbooks or hunt in dollar stores for gifts that are not expensive, but are nevertheless thoughtful.
Before you start buying gifts, you should make a list of all people to whom you want to give gifts. Also, divide the total budget that you have into the maximum amount you would like to spend on each person’s gift. You should also put down some ideas about the gift that you want to give to each person. You can take advantage of bulk offers also while buying gifts.
As a general advice, I would recommend shopping using cash or debit cards. In such turbulent economic times, it is better to keep debt low. Also, you might end up spending more by credit cards. On the other hand, if you have cash, you can keep a check on the amount of money that you are spending. So leave your credit cards at home.
You should also try traveling in groups as it cuts down costs. Go shopping with a few friends so that you can hunt for deals together. Also, try to keep away from unnecessary shopping and promotional offers.