Every year I see people cringe as they think about their credit card bills that will show up in January…….starting off the new year with a load of Christmas gift-buying debt. I’m a big fan of credit cards, but I use them like cash. If there’s no cash to back it up, there’s no credit card purchase made. However, when it comes to the holidays, people want to give their kids everything………and the debt becomes crippling.
Listen, I get it. I’m a mom. I want to buy the kids everything they asked for, and saw on the commercials, or in my case, got to check out at a Toy Event that introduced the latest and greatest toys to us bloggers in New York. But I prefer to have no debt to pay off from Holiday Shopping. Plus, the kids know by now, the stream of “I wants” they hear their friends saying, won’t fly with this mom. Santa brings some gifts, Mommy and Daddy buy one big gift, and that’s all she wrote. I’ve learned my lesson, because kids play with all the “stuff” for two days, and then it’s back to “I wants” when they see the newest commercials on TV.
How does someone buy gifts for the holidays, for her kids, her parents, her niece and nephews, and not have debt to pay off in January when the Discover Card bill arrives in the mail? I don’t spend my own hard-earned, blog writing, Isagenix business, CASH. Instead, I head to the internet each morning, earn a few points each day from a couple of fun websites, and when the gift giving season rolls around, I use the EASILY EARNED gift cards, or PayPal cash to shop till I drop.
My kids received Nintendo 3DS systems for Christmas, from Mommy and Daddy. Little Miss got pink (even though I wanted to get her the purple one, pink was all they had, ARGH,) and The Boy got a blue one. “Santa” brought them games for the system, and a few other toys like an Easy Bake Oven, and some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuff. They got more, but for the life of me, I can’t remember all of it. I just see wrapping paper, tape, and feels pangs in my back from the memories of wrapping all of it.
I paid ZIPPO of my own money for all of it. Those systems are $169.00 each. Sure, we used our Discover Card to pay for it, but the card was paid off with paypal cash. When we found the same system at another store, about a week later, for $40 less, we contacted Discover and they made it super easy to get that $40 back with their price protection.
Each gift purchased for the holidays was made with gift cards, or paypal cash, that is redeemed from points earned at amazing websites. Earning points is the only way we can afford giving gifts, whether at the holidays, or all through the year for our family, and friends. I don’t live a glamorous lifestyle, my friends. I write a blog, I’m not at the level where I make thousands of dollars a month. Most months I make ZERO.
In order to have no debt to pay off from holiday shopping, I just figured out a way to earn points, redeem them, and use the gift cards to share the gift giving spirit!
