Holidays are always a stressful and busy time of year. As a broke college student it can become almost overwhelming. But there are tricks to lessen the financial burden of holiday shopping and make things a little less overwhelming.
The first trick I’m going to talk about is couponing, couponing, couponing! Couponing is a really simple trick that can help you save money on all your purchases. Coupons are pretty easy to find if you know where to look. Most company websites have their coupons online or you can find their coupons in their fliers.
First I’m going to talk about how you can find online coupons for retail stores. For most retail companies if you type in google their store name and coupons it’ll bring you to their store coupon page. It’s a quick simple way to find discounts if you’re already in the store and it’ll help you save a few bucks on your purchase. For example, if you type in Kohl’s coupons into Google it will redirect you to Kohls coupon page. Most times Kohl’s has coupons ranging anywhere from a 10-25% discount off your total purchase which includes clearance items! Another great way to find online coupons is discount codes. Places such as retailmenot.com and coupons.com are great ways to find promo codes to enter for online purchases. One of my favorite tools for online promo codes is a browser extension called Honey. It’s a free add-in on your browser that searches the internet for coupon codes and enters them into the promo box for you. And if you have a promo code that isn’t listed on there that works you can add it for other users.
Another great way to get coupons is by signing up for a company’s fliers. Fliers are a great way to make a game plan for your shopping and are a great visual tool for you to shop with. In order to get holiday coupons from fliers the sooner you sign up the better! It takes a little bit for the companies to send out fliers and they usually only send them to you about once a month. These fliers are super useful for making a budget and planning out what you’re going to spend because the fliers layout all the deals and sales that the store is having that month. At the end of the fliers or the beginning is where they typically have their coupons. Once you have your game plan laid out you can estimate what your total is going to be and how much you will get off with their coupons.
Most stores also have reward programs that you can sign up for. They usually tend to be free and in most cases, you can get free coupons or free products. For places such as Sephora you can get free items on your birthday and free items on their website. If you sign up before the holidays and you purchase at those places you can use those points that you build up for things after the holidays when everything goes on sale.
To make some quick easy extra cash for your holiday shopping sell off your used things that you don’t want or need anymore. It’s a quick easy way to add more money to your budget and allows you to make room for your new holiday items. You can sell your items on apps such as Letgo, Facebook Marketplace, EBay, or even Amazon. If you’re sort of a crafty person you can make things and sell them on Etsy.
But my favorite trick out of all of these techniques is a free app called Shopkick. Shopkick is a rewards program where you can earn free gift cards. That’s right FREE GIFT CARDS. I know personally, I love anything that is free and the fact that I can get free money that actually works is amazing. You can earn points on Shopkick 4 different ways: walk-in stores, scan items in stores, link your card and earn points for money spent, and videos. The most efficient and quickest way that I have found to get points are walking into stores and scanning items. Videos usually only give you about 3-10 Shopkicks. They’re an easy way to help get small points but the goal is to get as many points as possible. The more points you have the bigger the gift card amount. The gift cards that they have range anywhere from $2-$50. They have some great places that you can cash in your points for gift cards. Some of the places that they have are retailers such as American Eagle, Target, Walmart, Amazon, etc. In my opinion, Shopkick would give you the best bang for your buck on Cyber Monday. You can stack gift cards on top of each other and if you’re making a substantial purchase it’ll help lessen the amount that you pay. In my experience, the gift cards sometimes don’t work in the store but work really well online.
It’s never too early to be prepared for the holidays and the shopping that is bound to come. Don’t let upcoming holiday shopping get the best of you and become overwhelming. Be prepared with these tips and tricks and dominate your holiday shopping list!