A guide to surviving holiday shopping

Oh sweet holidays how you drain my pockets. Please dont miss understand, I LOVE the holidays. I love cuddles, singing carols, and warm coffee. But as I am sure all of you with big families, a lot of friends, and cubs understand the pain of holiday shopping. This year I promised myself I would put my game plan into action way early and round out my shopping by December 1st. Here is how I am doing that...

Shutterfly. Oh shutterfly how I love you! I use Shutterfly for all my grandparent gifts instead of nick nacks or sweaters they probably do not need. Shutterfly has a huge range of products that will suite anyone for any budget.

And the reason I love them the most of all, they give away free goodies all the time. So after you finish this blog, download the shutterfly app and start uploading all those adorable and funnny picture you have stored on your phone of the cubs! Make sure you check back daily and take advantage of the sweet deals they offer. I order anything from mouse pads to puzzles with my cubs on it! Great quality for a lower cost, and a picture lasts forever!

Credit card points/rewards. Oh yes, this is a must. I spend all year long spending money only to use my points to save me money! That doesn’t seem right, huh? Some of our cards we have an option to do cash back, and when we can we use that money towards Christmas spending. In other cases I can order discounted toys and other items from their version of a mall. Either way I cash out those accounts before the end of the year, make sure you are paying attention to when they expire. This year alone I cashed in for $200.00, 4 sets of Legos, two Disney keychains, and a $30.00 Disney store gift card. Some company’s, like Disney, will have a huge sale on Black Friday so I always make sure to give myself time and have my money where it needs to be before the sale.

Girls? I know this one will not pertain to everyone but the last two years got me so know I am sharing the secret. Do you know about the Halloween sale at Disney? I missed out last year and I made sure to mark my calendar this year. Normally the week of Halloween Disney puts all their costumes and accessories 40% off. I took advantage of this to buy the new character shoes and crowns and dresses instead of paying full price cloeser to christmas. Normally the new characters don’t go on sale their first holiday season on the market so this was a great time to buy and save. I also stock up through out the year when American Girl does any sale. This year they did a “dog days of summer” sale and I purchased $300 worth of American Girl puppy friends and gear for $175.00.

Wunderlist. This app will save your butt when it comes to staying organized. Wunderlist is a free app I downloaded from the App Store where I can build and share lists with my other devices and other people. AMAZING! I have plenty of lists in there and one of them is a full shopping list. Daddy Wolfe and I get together early on and decide who we are buying for this year. Then as I buy or order something for that person I can check them off my list, what is nice about Wunderlist is I can go back and see what I checked off the list. If I am not sure if I had someone on the list I can go back and double check. No loosing paper and guessing and then double buying!

STAY AWAY! I try my best to stay out of the stores and off the internet sites to avoid over spending and buying things I do not need.

Husband, Wife shopping. Daddy Wolfe and I have agreed since our second Christmas together, no gifts. Here is why we do that, two reasons, save money and give more love. We save for our family vacations and that is our gift to each other of the year. We do have Santa fill our stockings but other than that we skip out one the opening of gifts. Only once has Ava asked and we told her Santa always brought us gifts when we were little, parents get to enjoy watching there kids. Seemed to do the trick.

Our family wishes you a happy holiday season that brings much joy! Happy shopping :)