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10 Ways to Save During the Holidays

Savvy money-saving strategies that'll help you afford a bright season

1. Do it yourself. For an old- fashioned, inexpensive homemade present, consider assembling a mulled-cider kit. When prices drop on 64-ounce jars of apple juice or cider, “grab as many as you can,” says Teri Gault, CEO and founder of the online-grocery site TheGroceryGame.com. Then wrap three sticks of cinnamon and about a tablespoon of whole cloves or allspice in cheesecloth, and tie the packet to the bottle with a bow. Include instructions ("Add the cheesecloth package to the juice and heat until bubbles begin to form"). "It costs maybe $1.50, and it’s a really sweet gift," Gault says.

2. Check company perks. Your company may have retail partners that offer special deals to employees, like a percentage discount at various retailers, movie chains, or museums. But check company policy before you go crazy. Some discounts are for employees’ use only and can’t be applied toward gifts.

3. Stock up on stocks. Get nieces, nephews, and godchildren stock certificates. "People don’t realize how inexpensive it can be," says Adela Rios, a financial adviser with Merrill Lynch. "Many kids shop at Wet Seal, for example, and that stock has been trading between $2 and $10." Imax, Atari, and Blockbuster are other relatively inexpensive stocks that might interest kids. Keep in mind that stocks can be volatile, so this is a fun present, but it also might pique kids’ interest in investing. Buy the stock in your account and have the stock certificate issued in the child’s name. Ask your financial-services firm to contact the transfer agent for whatever stock you choose and it will arrange to have the stock certificate sent.

4. Convert loose change. Coinstar offers holiday shoppers a special deal. If you take your pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters to a Coinstar machine and trade them for gift cards from Amazon.com, Hollywood Video, Pier 1 Imports, or Starbucks, you won’t have to pay Coinstar’s usual 9 percent commission. Check www.coinstar.com for a nearby location.

5. Recruit your kids. A roll of brown kraft paper or white butcher paper costs under 5 cents a foot (about one-third the cost of regular wrapping paper), and you can use it year-round (try your local craft store or www.centralpack.com, which sells a 1,000-foot roll of white butcher paper for $34.50 and a 1,000-foot roll of kraft paper for $19.50). Spread a roll across the floor and arm your kids with crayons, paint, or rubber stamps. You can even slice a potato or a pear in half and cut out a star shape in lieu of a stamp -- just press it to an ink pad. For inexpensive postal wrapping paper, cut open brown-paper grocery bags, turn them inside out, then trim to fit.

6. Watch the calendar. Ship packages by ground; upgrading to air costs two to five times more. The domestic standard ground-shipping deadlines for a package to reach its destination by December 25 are:


U.S. Postal Service (parcel post): at least 7 to 10 days before December 25.
United Parcel Service (UPS): December 13.
DHL: December 15.
Federal Express: December 16.
The U.S. Postal Service is the cheapest of the four, but bear in mind that it doesn’t offer free tracking or deals on insurance on its ground packages, as the others do. (UPS, for instance, offers free insurance for the first $100 at which your item is valued.)

7. Rev your engines. Everyone knows about Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity for finding cheap airfares. But newer "meta" travel search engines comb through these and other sites, rooting out even deeper discounts. Run searches for airfares, hotels, and car rentals through FareChase (www.farechase.yahoo.com, which works with the browsers Safari 1.2 on Macs and Windows Netscape 7.1 on PCs), SideStep (www.sidestep.com), Mobissimo (www.mobissimo.com), and Kayak (www.kayak.com). Each site has a different agreement with airlines, car-rental services, hotels, and independent sites (like CheapTickets.com), so they won’t display the same results. Southwest’s fares won’t show up at all; it is the one major airline that doesn’t participate in these types of programs.

8. Watch your weight. First airlines took away free food. Now they’ve instituted luggage surcharges. Though airlines differ, you can generally check two bags weighing less than 50 pounds each for free on domestic flights. A bag weighing between 50 and 70 pounds usually costs about $25 extra, while luggage over 70 pounds costs about $50. (Bags weighing over 100 pounds will usually not be allowed on the plane.) An extra bag will cost $80. Remember to check with your airline, as these rules can change. To be safe, either ship gifts to your destination (far in advance, so you can use ground shipping) or pack them in two separate, medium-size bags.


9. Grab your sweater. For every degree you turn down the heat, you’ll save up to 3 percent on your heating bill, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. A hot-water heater accounts for about 14 percent of a home’s utilities bill, according to the U.S. Department of Energy; setting it at 120 degrees Fahrenheit will "save a significant amount over the season," says Mary Hunt, editor of the newsletter Debt-Proof Living. But don’t go any lower than that temperature, she adds -- it’s the lowest that still kills bacteria in washing machines and dishwashers.

10. Talk cheap. Whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, use your cell phone -- not your landline -- for bidding family and friends good cheer. Most plans offer free nights and weekends ("free nights," meaning no minutes are deducted from your plan, start anywhere from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., depending on your carrier). Some also offer free calls when you’re dialing a cell phone from the same carrier, in what’s known as "free mobile-to-mobile."



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