Need Help With Christmas This Year?

With Christmas coming up, things can start to get really tight on our wallets. Over at MSN Money there is a great article called 10 Ways To Pay Cash For Christmas. It has some great ideas on how to save money or how to come up with some extra cash for those gifts. One idea that I think is particularly smart is that you can cash in your airline miles or reward points from your credit cards and use them towards gifts for the loved ones. I actually have a card that earns airline miles and I’m really considering cashing them in for some reward points. I’m not quite sure what the exchange rate is on them but it’s sure to get me something. Another thing that the list suggests is to cash in your coins. Go to a local Coinstar and trade all your change for cash. I do this pretty much once a year and usually walk away with at least a hundred bucks. The cool thing is, if you cash in your coins for an Amazon gift card, Coinstar doesn’t take their $0.08 per $1.00 cut. That’s great for Christmas because I can pretty much do all my gift shopping on Amazon
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Here’s a quick rundown of the list:
1. Adjust your income tax withholding.
2. Use your airline miles and trade them in for merchandise.
3. Use your credit card reward points for cool gifts.
4. Cash in your coins.
5. Get another job. Tons of places are hiring for seasonal positions.
6. Sell some stuff.
7. Sell other people’s stuff.
8. Cancel some subscriptions.
9. Call in your I.O.U.s.
10. Buy nothing else for a month.
Of course the article goes in to much more detail on each of these points. If you fear struggling through the holidays this year, this is a great place to start.

So I was just thinking about Christmas this year and stumbled on this post which in turn got me thinking about Christmas more. I read that article last year and a couple of the things really did help and I’m going to do them this year as well.
super article! I have truly appreciated it!