1.) Set a budget and stick to it

This one sounds easier than it is. First of all you should outline how much you want to spend this year overall. After that you can form groups of family members and friends and segment your money. After that you can look for presents for each member of the groups. The important part is obviously to really stick to your budget. The worst thing you could do is saying to yourself a buck here and there won’t really matter, which might be true in single cases, but if you do that for everyone you will most likely burn more money than you planned at the beginning.

2.) Know what to buy for whom and find out where to get it

After the boring part, which is setting the budget, there comes the creative part of the work. Looking for presents – which is easier said than done. But if you think about stuff that your family could use or things that bring joy to your children I am sure you can’t really do much wrong. Use the internet to your advantage in that part. There are plenty of places where you can find the best price for anything, Bonavendi.com only being one of those.

3.) Go shopping when no one else does

Now comes the part where it gets tricky. When does no one else go shopping during holiday season? I would personally say during the week is obviously better than on Friday evenings or Saturdays. The best day is probably Tuesday. You might now think, “Shouldn’t it say Monday morning here?” – And you are correct, partially. Would you really get up early on a Monday, maybe if you even took a day off work to go Christmas shopping? That would probably be even more stressful than just going on a Tuesday. But there is a way to shop whenever you want, which leads us to the next point on our list.

4.) Buy online

Buying online brings a lot of advantages. You can shop whenever you want, wherever you want and even more importantly for how much you want. There are plenty of sales and bargains online, stuff you can fit to every budget and there are loads of ideas to discover. And the best part about it – you circumvent going out of your cosy environment to something you don’t like. Just don’t forget to purchase on time and think about delivery times to your location

5.) Save money buying used but useful stuff

In general, you should be eager to get your presents for the best price possible, in order to get more out of your set budget. One very simple measure to achieve this is to buy used things, be it online or at a flea market. People give away hugely useful and often hardly used stuff for a lot less than you would think. Buying online has the big advantage of being able to compare prices very conveniently. But going out offers something cool too – you come together with people and have the opportunity to negotiate for the price you want to achieve. This even creates great stories that you might even want to tell on Christmas Eve. This could make your loved ones even happier than any other present you would image.

Have you ever wondered what to do with things that you don’t have any use for anymore? There is a really simple solution to it, just get rid of it. But of course there is more to it. You can also get money out of your old things and there is no reason why you shouldn’t. Here are 3 good reasons:

1.)    You get money to buy something new

Of course you might now think, “But I will never get out what I paid for my old games.” Simply put that is true for most things, but it is not a question of whether you get the same amount of money as you paid out of your old stuff, it is more about the value you can get for that money. You don’t even have to buy new stuff, because let’s be real here. The most things you could buy would land in a corner of your room sooner or later anyways. But here is the thing, sell enough of the used stuff you don’t need any more and gain something that you dreamed of for longer periods of time, be it a trip to Europe or just a night in a fancy restaurant with your significant other.

2.)    You get more space in your shelves

I am sure you see what I am up to here. The thing with books, games and DVDs is that after you get a certain amount of them you don’t know where to put them anymore. You can try to fit one thing here or another one there but that does never really solve the real problem, which is that you just have too much stuff. Keeping things you like is totally fine of course. Having a shelf with your most loved books or movies is fine too. But do you really need the one book that you read couple of years ago that you gladly forgot what it is even about? You can also see it as kind of an investment. If you enjoyed a book or learned something from it, keep it. If you never learned anything or profited of something try to at least get some money out of it and get something more useful.

3.)    You do something good for others

Think about it, if you get no value of something you own, why should no one else? Not only does it feel great to give, also some people will appreciate to get their hands on something lower priced even if it is not completely new. Be it the college student who needs textbooks or just the average guy trying to spend more nights with watching movies. It is basically a win situation for everyone. You get a penny out of those old Harry Potter books or movies you probably have already seen or read hundreds of times while someone who never had the privilege to read or see those will finally get a grasp on them. And remember, good things happen to people who do good.

After all it is not just a matter of getting money out of your stuff. It is a matter of value and maybe giving life to something old again. You wouldn’t believe what some tiny things might mean to some people that you never even thought about.