Don't let holiday shopping stress you out

Posted by citiYellow

Saturday, 21 January 2012 07:34

Do you consider shopping for holiday gifts to be a joyful experience, or do you dread it as a stress-inducing horror? If you fall into the latter category, you're not alone - 41 percent of people said that finding the right gifts caused the most stress, followed by 17 percent saying that finding the best prices was most stressful, according to a ChoiceStream survey.

While finding the right gift for everyone on your list may never be easy, finding the best price on a gift has never been easier. Here are a few tips to making the holiday-shopping season just a little less stressful.

* Use the extremely popular daily deal coupons. Groupon, Living Social and Crowd Cut are a few of the popular daily deal, group-buying coupon sites. But did you know there are more than 320 of them around the country? If you don't have time to look through all of them and sign up for their daily emails, check out a site that aggregates coupons like the one on cheapsally.com to view the deals from seven of the larger daily-deal sites in your area.

* Plan ahead. Shopping on Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving - can be extremely difficult, with great deals at most major retailers. Plan ahead for what you want to get by shopping online. Unless you're at the front of the line when a store opens in the middle of the night, you may strike out in getting that HDTV you're looking for because quantities are generally very limited. Retailers will often have more items at the lower price available online, allowing you to shop from the comfort of your own home and not have to battle the crowds.

* Stack savings. You don't have to be as extreme as those extreme couponers on TV, but they do teach a good lesson on stacking savings. This is a great way to save big, especially if you've planned ahead, know what you want to buy, and know where you want to buy the gift from. For example, say you want to purchase a shirt that you found at Bebe.com. Purchase a discounted Bebe gift card and then stack that with a coupon to get maximum savings - in the CheapSally.com gift card section, you can find a Bebe gift card for 15 percent off the value of the card. Once you get the gift card in the mail, you can use the card and combine it with a Bebe coupon to save even more. Planning ahead can save you up to 30 percent on your purchase.

You don't need to be one of the stressed holiday shoppers from the ChoiceStream survey. Getting great deals online for holiday gifts is easy if you look in the right place. A well-planned approach to holiday shopping can make the holidays much less stressful, and a lot more enjoyable.