The holiday season is our favorite time to shop smart and save! Coupon Mom has practical and creative tips to help you shop for everyone on your list and entertain family and friends in style. You’ll be more relaxed and stress-free if you don’t break the bank! Get ready to relax and enjoy the holidays, knowing you’ve shopped smart. Save money right away with these holiday spending tips:
1) Make a menu for your Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.
Sit down and list the dishes you plan to make and the ingredients you need to buy. Inventory your kitchen to see what you already have on hand – and be thorough.
2) Check weekly advertising circulars and CouponMom to see which stores have the best prices on the items you need.
Most stores will feature a few of items at rock-bottom sale prices – so you can cherry pick the best deals. Ask stores if they have a price matching policy. If one says yes, take the ads from all the stores to the price matching store and get the lowest price on every item in one store. (And you’ll save gas!)
3) Be a coupon hunter!
Thanksgiving and Christmas are the most important grocery coupon times of the year. Store circulars in newspapers have more coupons than usual in the two Sunday issues before Thanksgiving – and you can print great grocery coupons from websites like Coupon Mom.
4) Save by substituting and avoid expensive ingredients for your Christmas dinner.
For example, instead of using a $4 package of pecans for a sweet potato casserole topping, you might use a crumble topping with oatmeal, butter and brown sugar that costs pennies to make. Note, too, that it’s less expensive to bake a pumpkin pie than an apple pie – and much easier.
5) Stock up on holiday-time savings.
Take advantage grocery bargains right after Thanksgiving and Christmas and stock up for future meals. If you have the freezer space, buy an extra turkey or two. Don’t forget the sales on canned pumpkin, cranberries, gravy and pie crust mix – and you can use them all year.
If you love the holidays as much as Coupon Mom, you’ll love shopping with these tips and strategies for getting the most for your dollar, with the least stress possible. For the rest of the top 10 list, check out these suggestions on how to save during holiday shopping, for a happier and more relaxed holiday shopping experience.
http://www.couponmom.com/save-on-holiday-shopping-1038
And of course you can start saving today by signing up at http://www.couponmom.com/login.php