If you are anything like me, you wait until the last minute possible to buy your gifts. Five or ten years ago, that meant I would be at the mall with all of the other slackers on Christmas Eve. Parking was disastrous. Lines were atrocious. It was never pleasant.
But I’ve learned from those mistakes. With the advent of the internet came e-tailers. And some of them have grown to be formidable opponents to Brick & Mortar stores. My favorite is Amazon (what CAN’T you buy?!), although I also check out Newegg a lot, too.
Last Minute Shopping
These are the tactics I use to procrastinate as long as possible while still finishing up on time. I have used this strategy for the past 2 years.
1) Sign up for Amazon Prime trial. You do not have to pay any money. Go into your account settings and tell it not to auto-renew, though! Prime entitles you to free 2 day shipping on anything you buy from Amazon (but not the companies that sell through Amazon). That means you can still purchase things today and get them shipped for free in time for Xmas. If you procrastinate until tomorrow, as a Prime member you only have to pay $4 extra for overnight shipping.
2) Go to Slickdeals Hot Deals Forum. People post a bunch of great deals… many of them from Amazon. And even if they aren’t on Amazon, you may find something you were looking for. There are a ton of threads, so sort it by rating or category to make it more manageable.
3) Find items you want to purchase that are great deals from Amazon. With the huge assortment of items and deals posted on Slick Deals, you shouldn’t have a problem.
4) Check out Price Trace to see a pricing history of the product in question. You can see the price range 
and how much it has fluctuated over time. If the item is normally $400, was $200 last week, and is $300 this week, it is a good deal vs MSRP but not vs its history. Knowing the history can stop you from jumping the gun. The site will also show you the current prices at other stores.
The picture to the right shows the price history of a Canon SX20. Right now it is $369 but just about 2 months ago it got as low as $337. Is it worth it to wait for that price to come back around or do I want it NOW?
If you want to wait for a lower price, you can set up a price alert to let you know when it drops below the threshold.
5) Kick back and relax. Take comfort in knowing that all of the gift you purchased are getting delivered to your doorstep. Easy. Relaxing. And most importantly, frugal!
Other Last Minute Advice?
Does anyone else have some last minute Xmas shopping advice that they use and find to be pretty successful?
I'm MLR. After graduating from college debt free, I decided to write a blog encouraging people to adapt responsible and sensible personal finance rules.
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm |
With everyone buying things online these days, shouldn’t the crowds at Brick and Mortar stores be smaller? If I’m only buy half as much stuff at a physical store, I should only need to make half the trips to the mall, right?
I hate crowds.
Kosmo @ The Casual Observer´s last blog ..Olympic Anticipation
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MyLifeROI Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 4:29 pm |
@Kosmo @ The Casual Observer,
That seems intuitively correct!
But why, then, do I still pull my hair out when I get close to a mall due to the stress of traffic and crowds? Haha…
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December 22nd, 2009 at 10:54 pm |
All great sites and info.
Another one to check out for cheap deals is Woot. And also, Staples has some pretty great deals on electronics. Usually, there is a rebate process involved, but there’s is the most seamless, quick and efficient one as I’ve seen.
David/Yourfinances101´s last blog ..Christmas: A Time To Forget About Money, Or Not?
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MyLifeROI Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 4:32 pm |
@David/Yourfinances101,
Staples is indeed rebates made easy. I mean… you can fill them out online! Using slickdeals, you can usually get amazing deals from them.
Woot also has great deals, as do some other similar sites like Tanga.
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December 23rd, 2009 at 6:25 pm |
My strategy for successful last-minute shopping depends on where I am shopping:
Brick and mortar stores: I exceed the speed limit to get there extra quick and then pay people to cut ahead in those long checkout lines.
Internet based: I make sure I click the mouse really *really* fast! ;-)
Best,
Len
Len Penzo dot Com
Len Penzo´s last blog ..10 Off-the-Wall Gifts for Open-Minded People
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December 24th, 2009 at 4:07 pm |
I know it’s a little late now, but I posted a candy cane sugar scrub recipe that’s fairly simple to make and everyone most likely has ingredients on hand. It’s saved me a few times!
Mrs. Money´s last blog ..Frugal Christmas Eve Traditions
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