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Shopping. On one hand I’m not your stereotypical female with a shopping obsession. I don’t enjoy spending time at malls for example. On the other hand, I love holiday shopping! There’s something about being on a quest to find the perfect gifts for all of my friends and family that I simply can’t get enough of.

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I used to put off holiday shopping until as close to Christmas as possible. I loved the hustle and bustle of it for that one brief period during the year. But I realized something more recently. While I enjoyed it in the moment, getting caught up in that holiday buzz was really stressing me out! So I changed my plan last year and did my shopping early. In fact, I was finished with all of my necessary gift shopping by Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving here in the U.S.). That used to be the day I started.

I loved the change so much that I plan to do it again this year (or close to it). Combine that with a bit of retail knowledge from my younger years (for a while after school I actually worked in an area of retail marketing), and I have some tips and benefits to share with those of you who might be super-early holiday shoppers in the making.

Early Holiday Shopping: Tips and Benefits

1. You can find better deals on staples and casual gifts. — It’s a common misconception that the best deals come around the holidays. You can almost always find a better deal at different times of the year. For example, you might find a better deal on a laptop for your child during the back to school shopping period than the holidays (when more limited models seem to be priced with deep discounts). You can stock up on standard gifts like candles (for co-workers or a child’s teacher perhaps) at any time of the year.
2. You get to take advantage of clearance seasons. — Here’s another tip related to saving money by shopping early. While different retailers will have their clearance events at slightly different times, February and July are usually the big clearance months. These are the times when stores are clearing out inventory to make room for next season’s products. You can save on anything from clothing (choose basics if you buy early since trends can change quickly) to toys and games or even home appliances and electronics.
3. Early holiday shopping can help you avoid debt. — Many people go into debt over holiday shopping, putting gifts on their credit cards. Then it takes months to pay off the balances — often at a high interest rate. Don’t be one of those people. Shopping for holiday gifts early allows you to spread out your shopping over the year so you don’t have a huge expense hitting you all at once when the holidays roll around.
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   Shopping early for gifts can save you stress. — I didn’t realize how stressful the holidays had become for years. And I know I’m not the only one. They can cause burn out if you aren’t careful. While the fun and anticipation and general excitement can be a good kind of stress, it’s still stress. Now I know I can have even more fun by getting the shopping out of the way early — no last minute wrapping, no fights for parking spots. Instead I’m left with more time to decorate, bake cookies, watch my favorite holiday films, and visit friends and family. And when family members complain about the hassle of shopping, I get to sit back and reminisce about what that felt like without having to join them in reliving it year after year.

What about you? Do you finish your holiday shopping early, or are you a last minute type of shopper? Do you have other tips on finding great deals on gifts by shopping early? Is it something you’d like to try? Leave a comment and tell us about it.

Doesn’t Christmas in the recession seem more depressing than fun?

More often than not Christmas shopping and gifts budget is almost impossible to put under control.

So here’s a major treat for your heart: Christmas decorations, gifts and hacks that won’t cost you a penny. And what is more, they all actually look cool!

The tips listed there have three reasons to appeal to you: these things are (1) free, (2) eco-friendly and (3) totally re-usable. So let’s celebrate a green Christmas on a budget this year:

1. Christmas Tree

Glass Bottle Christmas Tree: Do you like drinking bier? Do you prefer glass bottles? Do you know that the fun never stops even when the bottle is empty? Here’s a great idea for you to recycle those green glass bottles into a glamorous tree:

Hard Drives Christmas Tree: This one should appeal to real computer geeks. “In total there are around 70 old SCSI hard drives, between 9gb and 18gb in size each”:

Plastic Bottles Christmas Tree: This hanging Christmas Tree is made of 300 recycled water bottles. The installation looks beautiful casting and reflecting beams of light and thus creating an eye-catching display:

Also be sure to check this post for numerous ideas of less impressive but still 100% eco-friendly Christmas Trees.

Recycled Christmas Decor

This cute snowman made of plastic cups would look great in your house and I am sure your kids will enjoy creating it:

Plastic Bottle Snow Flakes: The author of this artistic design offers to use it as a room divider or a curtain. I think these look like snow flakes and they will definitely contribute to your home Christmas spirit:

Christmas Wreaths

Stay-at-home moms should appreciate this Christmas wreath. It is made of white buttons and looks really nice:

This wreath consists of an old dead power source, an old mouse, an extra power cable, two CDs, and an extra fan cable (by the way, here’s another geeky wreath (and one more) for you if you like this one)…

Christmas Gifts

This “ship in a bottle” motif is a whimsical way to wish your beloved ones happy Christmas. I am sure the one who receives a message like this will never forget it. Wouldn’t you like to make this Christmas special?

This nice candle holder gift made from recycled CDs will take you no more than 10 minutes to create. Just take a couple of old CDs, microwave them for about 5 seconds and add cute candles:

Snow in a jar: all you need is to take a glass jar, attach pieces of a small plastic landscape (available at toy and novelty stores) and fill the jar with water and a sprinkle of glitter. Your kids will be impressed and inspired (oh btw, and here’s a similar concept you may be interested in):

Christmas Lights

Ping Pong LED lights: Has it ever occurred to you that you can turn Ping Pong balls into multi-color fairy lights? Follow these instructables and you will create one!

This “Candelabra” may be too much for your living room but it can be turned into an unforgivable Christmas decoration:

This glowing jar can be used all over the year but on Christmas it can make a killer holiday decoration (oh, and it can be a nice Christmas gift as well). Inside the Sun Jar is a highly efficient solar cell, a rechargeable battery and three low energy LED lamps.

To make these cool wine bottle lights you will need empty wine bottles, a string of Christmas lights, and a drill.

50 plastic cups and 100 multi-color mini-lights are needed to create one sparkle ball. But the result is well worth it: the color and lights effects are impressive:

As the New Year approaches most of us are caught up with buying gifts for loved ones and people who matter. Gifting is certainly not as easy as it seems. Finding appropriate gifts for a husband, wife, boss and friends is a huge task by itself, as it should be something the other person will actually use.

How about gifting them something that provides an inspiration to keep healthy?

What can be more motivating than cool tech exercise devices? They help people keep track of their progress and burn more calories. Just as with anything else, exercise depends on setting goals and tracking progress. Keeping tabs on the workout is very important.

Instead of giving sweets and chocolates that add to their weight and are bad for heath, the following devices will be great in helping your loved ones get a better workout and meet their fitness goals. They make wonderful and unusual gifts for the New Year.

Projie Training Companion

This 3.5 inch LCD device can be taken to the gym and used when working out. It has videos that show the perfect form for any sort of exercise. Even better, it works as a music player too. It has a receiver to read a heart rate strap wirelessly. If you are willing to make it a better gift, then you can splurge on a Wi-Fi, where workouts can be downloaded at anytime. This will make the perfect gift for people who keep traveling and frequent hotel gyms. It costs $299 for 512MB and $399 for 1GB with Wi-Fi.

Suunto t3

This is a watch that gives the user a real-time reading of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). The first one of its kind, this watch consists of a 5-point scale that uses the body’s vital signs to tell the person if the body is being over-exerted or under-exerted. If the reading shows 1, time to step up the treadmill speed. If it is 5, time to slow down. It tells the heart rate as well as the number of calories burned. This is wonderful because it is lighter than a normal Timex watch. It is priced at a very reasonable $199.

The Entertainer

Serious exercisers who are TV addicts understand how watching TV while exercising can be bad for exercise. But not anymore! The Entertainer uses this vice to fuel a workout. This device can be hanged from any cardio machine and a wireless chest strap beams the heart rate. If the user slows down too much, it acts as a remote control and decreases the volume of the TV. If the user gets lazy, it completely stops, making sure the TV addiction does not get the better of anyone.

Sharper Image Talking Pedometer

You will not have to worry about a drill sergeant berating the flabby love handles. This talking pedometer is quite polite to the user and simply voices the number of steps taken by the user as well as giving the distance. There is an in-built clock and alarm that has whacky tones. This is a lightweight device and weighs just 1 ounce and can be clipped to the waistband or shirt. It makes a beautiful but inexpensive gift at $19.95.

Cat Eye Micro Wireless CC-MC100W Bike Computer

If you know someone who is a cyclist, then this affordable device will make a wonderful and unique gift that they will surely love. This is a cyclometer that can be mounted to any bike frame easily. It is wireless and has a lot of features, such as an odometer, sleep mode, dual tire-size memory, auto-power save, auto as well as manual start and stop along with a bright backlight. This cyclometer measures the distance, speed and cycling cadence. It comes with a clock and alarm too. The cost is just $55.

Garmin Forerunner 305

A high-sensitive GPS sensor is crammed into this small device that is strapped over the inner part of the wrist that faces the sky when people go jogging. There is a chest strap that reads the heart rate, pace, speed, distance as well as calories burned. It may not come cheap at $376, but you certainly would want to gift something expensive to your boss or even to the love of your life.

If you are a regular gym person, do not assume that others are too. A survey shows that about 46 percent of Americans get little exercise. Exercise is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prevent obesity and other chronic diseases. These devices will help motivate people you love or are close to, to start exercising and start taking care of their health this New Year.

Christmas is not far away and there is cheer all around. It is that time of the year when people go on a shopping spree, buying gifts for family and friends. The advent of online shopping changed the way people shop. Most people prefer doing their shopping online now, to be able to save time and money, especially on gas.

While some can spend huge amounts of money, others do their Christmas gift shopping on a limited budget. But for every shopper a free delivery sounds attractive.

Amazon is the first one to give a Christmas gift to its shoppers. It has come up with a “free delivery” scheme. Shoppers do not have to spend a whole lot of money to be eligible for the free delivery scheme. All they need to do is buy products worth a mere £5, when earlier the limit was £15 with Amazon. What this means is that 90% of the orders end up getting their purchases shipped to them free without incurring packing and postage costs.

It was as early as 2002 that Amazon first offered free delivery in the UK but only when a consumer purchased £39 worth of goods. Later it brought down the limit to £19 and then to £15 three years back, in 2005.

According to Bruce McBride, Amazon UK MD, “It is to get people lifted for Christmas. Times are tough out there and this will come as a welcome bonus for people.”

Free delivery is something consumers appreciate and it has the power to make people buy without inhibitions. This could be because people feel that the cost paid towards shipment is money they are not getting anything out of, especially those that buy less priced items. According to consumers, they say that they feel penalized when they have to incur delivery charges on low-cost items. Imagine buying something that is worth £10 and then paying the same or more towards delivery charges. Research shows that a large percentage of customers feel that free delivery is the most important factor they take into consideration before making a decision to buy something.

This super saver scheme enables consumers to buy whatever they want and it is going to help them when buying those CDs and DVDs that cost just a little more than £5. Now they will be delivered home free. This is a two-thirds reduction from Amazon’s original £15 threshold.

According to Amazon, orders placed using the Super Saver Delivery scheme are generally expected to take anywhere between two and four days later than the same orders that are placed using the first class paid delivery.

Other than Amazon, you can also take advantage of several other Christmas promotional offers. You can make searches for “free delivery” and see what you find and compare prices before placing your order. There are many companies that hike up the product rates while giving free delivery of products. You can check out Amazon rival Play.com, which offers free delivery on all orders, even those to many destinations internationally. Zavvi.co.uk is not far behind and offers free delivery on all purchases.

Not having to pay delivery charges makes Christmas shopping much more fun for everyone. You are only paying for the item you buy and nothing else. There is no need to get Christmas shopping blues.