Money Saving Ideas!

As a Mom of nine kids....six of them mine and three of the step-children, I have a LOT of people to buy for at Christmas time. Four of those 9 are married, three have children. One has a VERY significant young man in her life. We are up to six grandkids now!
So, at Christmas time, it is REALLY difficult to actually buy for everyone on our list. That is something we both want to do...continue to give something fairly nice to each of our loved ones.

I always buy early for the next year, starting in January. This year, I have MOST of it done already and it is just February! What a blessing it is to me to know that I have nice gifts for everyone already! If I have to stop now and buy no more, it will be ok! I have been able to go to Kohl's Department store and buy things on clearance sale. They ALSO often have "Kohl's Cash" that they give when you spend a certain amount of money. I was able to buy clearance, I had a 30% off coupon AND I got Kohl's Cash to spend THIS week.
My receipt said that I saved nearly $1000 and I spend about $200...and got $40 in Kohls Cash.

I have come across another money saving idea though, last week. Target has promotions that if you buy a certain product, or sets of products, you get a gift card in return! I only buy the things that are really on sale...not just a gimmick sale... So far, I have six $5 gift cards just waiting for a time closer to Christmas to finish buying Christmas presents! I will continue to watch for those deals and then just save them until I can use them for toys for the grandkids, Israel, and things for our teenagers.
Last week, they had a promotion that if you buy 10 selected items from Mexican or Italian foods, you got a gift card.(Everything was on sale as well....) So I figured out which items I had coupons for (Ragu), and bought them. Then, I figured which items would be the least expensive (pasta) and bought ten of them. They also had taco shells at a really good price....bought some of those as well! THEN....over in the cereal department, they had certain General Mills cereals on sale for $2.50. I had to buy five of those and got the $5.00 gift card. (I had coupons...of course...) Our teenagers eat a LOT of cereal, pasta, etc....so it makes sense to go ahead and buy them to have on hand. If I don't get a really good deal, I then can go to Aldi's to make those purchases...
Having enough storage space DOES become a problem...we may have to have a few things sitting on counters for a little while...but we are used to that!

There are also ideas bouncing around in my head for home made Christmas presents. I'm trying to get a head start on them so that I don't feel overwhelmed in December. I know, I'm kind of strange...I think about Christmas 12 months of the year!

Anyway, I just wanted to give a few examples of ways to save money AND get a good deal in return.

Have a lovely day!
Beth