A Way of Christmas Gift Shopping Throughout the Year

Buy each person on your Christmas present list an extra present when you buy them a birthday present. This is one way of doing your Christmas shopping throughout the year without really noticing it.

If you're already looking for gifts for a certain person, you're likely to find at least 2 or 3 things they'd like. Instead of buying just one for their birthday, why not buy two gifts, give one for their birthday and save the other one for Christmas?

The advantages of doing this are:

• It spreads the cost of Christmas shopping over the whole year.
• A better selection of products are usually available outside the Christmas rush period when lots of things have sold out.
• You can buy presents in sales that are held throughout the year. 
• It saves time - you only shop for presents for each person once during the year.

 The disadvantages I can think of are:

• It's not possible to do this for your children because they usually receive a number of gifts on both their birthdays and at Christmas (!)
• If you're shopping for a particular person's birthday gift in a month when you're short of cash, your budget probably won't stretch to buying another present. However, you could always look for a gift they'd like and buy it as soon as your funds allow.
• If you know a lot of people with birthdays in the same month, it might not be financially viable to buy them all 2 presents.

I can't remember where I first heard this way of getting most, if not all, of your Christmas gift shopping done before December rolls around but I do think it's a good idea. I don't always buy extra birthday presents and save them for Christmas but sometimes I do. If I do, I'm always glad that I have because it saves time and money in the run-up to Christmas.