Five Reasons to Start Your Christmas Shopping Now

Save money and lower stress by holiday shopping year-round.

Christmas is over, but that doesn’t mean you should stop holiday shopping. You can save money and time by starting your Christmas shopping in January and continuing to shop for the holidays throughout the year. Get better deals and lower stress by getting a 12-month head start on holiday shopping.

Deals, Deals, Deals: January is a great time to shop for Christmas because major department stores such as Macy’s and Nordstrom offer customers massive deals. We’re talking up to 60 percent off. You’ll find that some of the deals offered to consumers in January are better than the deals offered in the fall and winter when the public traditionally Christmas shops. Lucky magazine also notes that the end of the summer is a great time to Christmas shop, as many department stores hold sales then.

Avoid The Financial Crunch: Christmas shopping throughout the year may not only help you save money, it also may help you avoid spending heaps of cash all at once during the holiday season. If you’re always broke and in debt after the holidays, consider shopping little by little throughout the year. Spending $25 here and $50 there won’t leave you feeling as cash-strapped as you do when you dole out hundreds of dollars in November and December to buy presents for your loved ones.

Lower Stress: If you tend to buy all of your gifts at the last minute, you know the stress of going to a store and discovering it’s all out of the product you wanted to buy. That results in a mad dash to other stores or obsessive searching online for the gift. Even if you find the gift online, you have to worry about whether it will arrive in time for the holidays. Shopping early can help you avoid all of this chaos.

Save Time: Waiting until fall to do your Christmas shopping means enduring long lines, crowded parking lots and slower service at stores. If you’re shopping in January or July, however, you can shop in relative peace. That means a quick shopping experience rather than one in which you have to fight off pushy consumers or be waited on by weary sales clerks.

Going Out of Business Sales: The economy may be slowly rebounding, but that won’t stop stores from going out of business this year. Keep an eye out for stores that are closing their doors and get Christmas presents for your loved ones at much lower rates. A store that’s going out of business desperately wants to move as much merchandise as possible, giving the consumer all of the advantage.

[ALSO READ: How to Budget During The Holidays]

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