Never Pay Full Price for Christmas

My husband seems to be the most amazing winner when it comes to bargains and I think it is because he looks for them. He looks through the bargain bins in the shops, goes to the clearance sales and keeps his eyes open. One day last year, we found our local KMart was renovating its store, so there were massive tables of bargains, not just half price, but 50% of the already reduced price, which had been reduced by 50%. We picked up all our Christmas presents. Our best buys were a bar fridge down from $360 to $90, a couple of BBQs from $99 to $40 and a couple of portable car/boat fridges from $180 down to $40. We were very pleased with ourselves. Our family thought we were being so generous when we gave gifts but in reality they hardly cost anything, because our motto is to never pay full price.

I am a believer of buying Christmas presents in advance and storing them. That way you can plan ahead and save money by getting the items on sale. There are a few websites you can look at to keep your eye on the sales. Lasoo has a whole heap of catalogues in one place. Also check out the factory outlets for bargains.

Below are a few other ways to save cash at Christmas:

- Buy Christmas paper at the post Christmas sales
- Buy something useful like tea towels or pillow slips, and use them to wrap the gifts with some festive ribbon.
- I save the paper from our unwrapped gifts and reuse that also.
- If you have kids, you can even use butcher's paper or old news paper, make some Christmas tree stencils and paint red & green Christmas trees or stars all over the paper. It gets the kids involved and out of mischief and is a cute personal touch.
- Make Christmas tree/star/holly shapes out of coloured card and stick them to the gift as a name card
- A Christmas card/newsletter can be emailed to your friends worldwide to save on postage
- If you are able, make gifts - sew a doona cover, make some PJs, build a doll house, take an amazing photo and have it framed.

These are just some ideas to get the wheels churning, I am sure opportunities and ideas are endless, I am always interested to hear what other people do to save money and manage to never pay full price for Christmas.