Inexpensive and Luxurious Christmas Shopping
Good morning, Live Better than a Billionaire-a-Holics!
Are you feeling motivated this morning? I certainly hope so. I know that I am!
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. If not, I hope you are thankful that Thanksgiving is over.
There are so many good ways to pursue Christmas shopping inexpensively and luxuriously that I'm going to take the liberty of using several different perspectives.
Let's start with the extroverts. They want to meet people, chat about shopping and revel in the masses of people. Here are some suggestions for them:
1. Start with research into what's available. A good place to begin is with your friends for whom you don't have to buy gifts. What have they spotted? What are they looking for? Then, head to small specialty stores with exquisitely interesting items and ask the salespeople to describe their best items.
2. Ask those you are buying presents for what have been their best gifts in the past. Ask them to explain why they liked those gifts.
3. Look into making gifts that will outdo what stores and the Internet offer. Most people still prefer hand-made gifts. Search out items that you can make with others. Look for local classes and workshops where gifts are going to be made.
4. During each excursion, plan to go with a friend or two . . . and schedule some time for lunch, tea or a concert in a mall.
5. Arrange to take turns driving during shopping trips so you can have more fun chatting while driving.
6. Have a little get-together at your house with your friends to show off what you've bought. You'll have to do this when the rest of the household isn't around. It'll be great fun!
7. Buy yourself something extravagant that will make the shopping more fun and attract more people to talk to you. It might be a hat that you can't miss, an astonishing scarf, a hand-rubbed walking stick . . . or even a delightful new dog.
8. Arrange to hold a little party for any new interesting people you meet during your Christmas shopping.
Let's help the introverts now. They find the whole process a little overwhelming in terms of how many people they have to interact with.
1. Shop on-line. You won't have to talk to anyone.
2. Let Google be your guide. Google can be like a personal shopper for finding items with the best ratings and at the lowest costs.
3. Pick items that you would like to have yourself that you think the other person would like as well. In this case, if they don't want the item, you can tell them to give it to you and you can give them a gift certificate to pick out something for themselves.
4. Put on some beautiful music while you shop on-line.
5. If you have a fireplace in that room, stoke it up to give you the holiday feeling.
6. Make yourself some hot chocolate to further put you in the spirit.
Let's focus on the procrastinators next.
1. Don't bother buying anything for local people until December 24 after 3 p.m. The stores are quite empty then, and the time pressure will help you finish quickly. Plus, there are a lot of last-minute markdowns so prices are good.
2. After you are done, go home and send on-line gift certificates to Amazon.com to everyone who lives far away.
3. Time yourself on how long it takes you to finish your shopping. Celebrate if you can be done in less than three hours including driving time!
Finally, let's look at helping the bargain hunters.
1. Face it, everything is cheaper after Christmas. If those who receive gifts from you don't mind, just get them gift certificates from stores and on-line sites where they can get practically anything. This saves the hassle of returning something you found for them that they don't really like . . . or don't like as much as something else.
2. Search out places that discount their gift certificates. Some malls and stores sell gift certificates at a 20-35% discount. Use those after December 25 for additional savings.
3. Look for charity offers. For instance, at Taco Bell now in the Boston area you can get a gift card that you can use to save over $75 in a year. The cost is only $2 for a donation to the Jimmy Fund to fight juvenile cancer. And that donation is tax deductible. Find enough of these deals and you will look like a millionaire gift-giver.
4. If someone insists that you buy them a specific item (say one of your children), make them a toy representation to put in a box that goes inside of another box and so forth so they have fun unwrapping a present. Then go buy the item on December 26 (or at least order it then). This saves having to buy two presents (one so they can open on December 25 and then the real item when the toy manufacturers let go of the artificial shortage by shipping again after Christmas.
5. Change your family tradition to hold a "Boxing Day" after Christmas when gifts are exchanged. The English do this. This lets you go out on December 26th to do your shopping at low prices while not offending anyone. With high heating costs this winter, this may be your best bet.
How could a billionaire do better?
Donald Trump, are you reading?
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N.B. As you can tell, I'm experimenting with color. Let me know what you like and what I should change about my use of color. Many thanks to Linda Grace for her suggestions which I am following!
Please let me know what else you would like to learn, and I'll do my best to help in future blog entries.
Here are some upcoming subjects:
Sunday, we'll describe how to fill your day with spiritual delights!
On Monday, let's look at how you can have a billionaire mind. Be sure to read this post!
Tuesday, we'll look at the time wasters that are costing you a billionaire's lifestyle.
On Wednesday, the post will look at bad advice that you are receiving from billionaires that you should ignore or forget.
Thursday, you and I will explore how to make weekend plans better than a billionaire at the last minute for beautiful living.
August 31 was the most frequently read blog entry to date. Be sure to check it out!
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Live Spiritually Better than a Billionaire at http://livespirituallybetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/,
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http://2000percentsolutions.blogspot.com/,
Enjoy Mansions Better than a Billionaire at http://enjoymansionsbetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/,
Enjoy Football Better than a Billionaire at http://enjoyfootballbetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/ and
Be a World Hero Better than a Billionaire at http://beaworldherobetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/.
I offer individual on-line tutorials and in-person seminars on living better than a billionaire on five dollars extra a day, creating 2,000 percent solutions (20 times the results with the same effort), developing more profitable business models and designing strategies that work regardless of the business environment. For information, contact me at ultimatecompetitiveadvantage@yahoo.com.
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May God bless you.
Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge
Copyright 2005 Donald W. Mitchell
posted by Donald Mitchell @ 8:48 AM
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