Holding the Reins on Holiday Spending by Jean C. Gordon

When do you start your holiday shopping, and how carefully do you plan? 

Personally, I don’t holiday shop until after Black Friday, but I know many people like to start earlier. And for people who like to shop — I don’t — it’s easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of holiday cheer and spend a lot more money than you intended. But the whirlwind of bills that may come due in January should be enough to convince you to create — and stick to — a holiday spending plan.

Start with a List

Impulse buying can quickly derail your finances. Before you begin your holiday shopping, make a list of everyone you buy gifts for. Then set a separate spending limit for each person based on the total amount you can reasonably afford to spend. When it comes to buying for kids in the family, I like to check with them and their parents so I can choose something in my price range that they want and aren’t already going to get. Once you’ve reached the spending limit you’ve set, stop buying.

Control Credit Cards

Bringing multiple credit cards with you to the mall may tempt you to overspend. It’s probably best to leave them at home. If you want charge purchases to get rewards or discounts, keep track of what you’ve charged by writing down the amount of each purchase. Make sure you’ll be able to pay off the entire balance when your statement arrives.

Comparison Shop

Newspaper flyers can help you compare your gift list with what’s on sale at local stores. Always check out prices of big-ticket items at several places before you buy. An online search can save time, gas, and money, even if you eventually buy the item in the store. If you do buy online, look for perks such as free shipping and gift wrapping.

Consider Gift Destinations

If you’re mailing gifts, choose items that are small, lightweight, and easy to pack. Remember to send packages early to avoid having to pay extra for rush delivery.

Books Are a Bargain

Where else can you buy someone hours of entertainment for less than $10? For the romance readers on your list or to treat yourself, here are three 99¢ deals that are easy to fit in anyone’s holiday shopping budget.

Bridget O’Brien lost her fiancé to a dangerous job. And, while she’d love to have a relationship like the one she lost, the last thing she wants is one with another man who willingly puts his life in danger. Luke Foster is a motocross racer whose track record with women runs short and no-strings-attached on both sides. He’d never seriously pursue a forever-after woman like Bridget.

All they want is a holiday week away. Bridget from her well-meaning family’s condolences about her planned Christmas Eve wedding and her memories of a future that won’t be. Luke from his family’s annual critique at which he and his life choices always fall short of expectations.

But, under the blue Caribbean skies, anything can happen. 

A Team Macachek Novella: Meet the strong women and fearless men of the motocross circuit.

Buy: Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo

Team Macachek Book One — 99¢ through November 14

Physical therapist Dana VanAlstyne’s dreams of a family were lost in the dust of a motocross racecourse. Although she’s filled her life with her work and church activities, it hasn’t filled the empty space inside her. Nor has it eased the heartache of being abandoned by a man who wasn’t ready for a wife and children. Now her dream is to open her own private practice. All she needs is the capital to make that happen.

Anton, “Mac,” Macachek may be the top professional motocross racer in the country but he still has one race that matters more to him: winning a championship at Unadilla Raceway and showing the hometown folks the bad boy did amount to something. But when a horrific accident sidelines those plans, he makes a deal with the woman he once loved with all his heart. A woman who abandoned him. If Dana will get him back in racing shape, he’ll fund her new practice. Then an even more dangerous risk is revealed. If Mac races again, he could die.

Does Dana have enough faith to risk her heart again? She loved Mac once, but feared he loved motocross racing more than he loved her. If she helps him mend his broken body, will it also mend her broken heart? Or will it all be lost again in the dust and danger of a motocross racetrack?

Buy: Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo. Also available in paperback on Amazon and Barnes & Noble online.

And if you haven’t bought your copy of Sweet Romance Christmas 3, scroll up and click on the cover picture in the right-hand column.

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For Amazon bestselling sweet and inspirational author Jean C. Gordon, writing is a natural extension of her love of reading. From that day in first grade when she realized t-h-e was the word the, she’s been reading everything she can put her hands on. Jean and her college-sweetheart husband share a 175-year-old farmhouse in Upstate New York—where she sets her books—with their daughter and her family. Their son lives nearby. Connect with Jean on Facebook, as @JeanCGordon on Twitter, or on JeanCGordon.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter and receive a free eBook.

Who Are You? Shopping for Sweaters and a Title by Milou Koenings

Who are you? Who do you choose to be?  Based on what criteria do you want others to judge you first?

Who knew shopping posed such existential questions?

All I wanted was a twinset. 

I mean, that's a pretty conservative purchase by any standard, don't you think? 

It should have been a safe shopping trip. 

Especially since my kind of shopping involves a keyboard, a cup of tea and PayPal. 

Plus, I had my BFF on WhatsApp to help me avoid disastrous color choices while she was shopping online from her own laptop, searching for kitchen-cabinet handles for her new house.

I was going to try a store I had never shopped at before, but which had been highly recommended to me by several people.  Wow - the selection was amazing!  Twinsets in almost every color I could imagine.  And all the other sweaters ... On sale, too! 

BFF and I oohed and aahed and finally chose pistachio over cabernet. 

Everything went swimmingly until it was time to check out. 

I had to create a profile. 

I duly typed in my name.  Then there was the innocuous looking little box with a drop-down menu that asked me to choose an honorific. 

And this is when I discovered that I had been shopping in the wrong places all my life:  

Mrs. Ms. Mr. Dr. ... what's that? Baron?  Baroness? Countess? 

Since when are those options on a drop-down menu?  Not on any I'd ever seen before.

Huh.  Not passing up this opportunity, I thought...

I pulled up WhatsApp and snapped a picture of my computer screen.  "Which should I choose, dame or countess?"

BFF's response was swift.  "Countess. Implies rank based on heredity or good marriage. Dame could be an actress!!!"

Good point.  Dame could be so common!

Countess it is - good breeding or good choice in partner. Either one works.   

But as I was about to click on it, I made another awesome discovery.  If I scrolled down, there were even more choices!  I mean, the sweater collection, ample as it was, paled in comparison to this array of titles from which to choose:

Golly this was tough ... Who did I want to be?  Admiral?  Squadron Leader?  A nun devoted to a life of service?  After a few elimination rounds though, I had it down to two.

Me:  "Professor or princess? Hard call that one ..."

BFF: "Prof. is your own intelligence. Might be worth something."

Argh. She's always right that one.

So there went my chance of being a princess, even if only on a mailing label. 

At the end of the evening, we settled on Ms. Because every woman is a princess, right?  

And besides, less is more.  For all they knew in the customer service department, I was The Duchess of Cambridge shopping incognito. 

But sometimes, I can't help but wonder ... you think they'd have made me send the twinset back if they'd found out the Countess de Koenings was an impostor?

PS Where was I shopping? A store called WoolOvers. Google them and you, too, could reinvent yourself. And the sweaters are fab!

Milou Koenings is a USA Today best-selling author. She writes romance because, like chocolate, stories with a happy ending bring more joy into the world and so make it a better place.  
 

Her Green Pines sweet romances, Reclaiming Home and Sweet Blizzard are available on Amazon and Amazon.uk. 
 
You can find her on her website, www.miloukoenings.com, on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest.
 

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Black Friday, a Tradition by Raine English

Families have many traditions, especially around the holidays. A favorite of mine is one that I started years ago and share with my daughter—it’s our Black Friday outing. We look forward to it each year, and not just because it kick-starts the Christmas shopping season, but because it’s a time for just the two of us to have fun.

Each Thanksgiving evening, after we’ve stuffed ourselves with turkey and all the trimmings, we nap for a few hours, then hit the road so that we’ll be at the mall by midnight. We scour the stores looking for bargains but stay away from any that attract a huge crowd. Neither one of us enjoys dealing with that madness.

Around 3:00 A.M., we take a break from the stores to drink mocha lattes and review our purchases. Some years we haven’t had much luck finding gifts, and others we wind up getting most of our Christmas shopping done. But our outing isn’t really about that. It’s about being together.  I know there are lots of other things we could do besides wandering the mall in the wee hours of the morning, and I know there are those who might think we’re crazy for doing it, but we love it. And for me, having a mother/daughter event that I can count on yearly is very, very special, even though it leaves me exhausted for the rest of the day.

What’s your special holiday tradition?

~*~

USA Today bestselling author Raine English writes sweet small-town romances. She lives in New England with her family and her French bulldog, Bailey. 

Her latest release, Some Christmas Magic, is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo. 

For information on all of her books, visit her website at www.RaineEnglish.com.

I Love Thrift Store Shopping by Angela Benson

I have a new hobby - shopping for clothes at thrift stores.  Okay, maybe it's more a past-time than a hobby but it's something I really enjoy.  When I was in Atlanta a few weeks ago, my mom, my husband and I made a day of thrift store shopping.  We hit two Park Avenue Thrift Store outlets (Woodstock and Lawrenceville) and a Park Avenue Thrift Store (Lawrenceville).  We made a day of it, taking our lunch with us, and only making it back to mom's house in time for a late dinner. 

So what makes thrift store shopping so much fun? Let me tell you.

1.  The prices.  The outlets are the best when it comes to prices.  At the Woodstock outlet, everything is $1.25 on Mondays, the day we went, while everything was $1.00 at the Lawrenceville outlet.  Do you know what that means?  I found four outfits, including two two-piece skirt sets, and spent less than five dollars total.  Mom found considerably more yet spent less than $20.  The funny thing is that my mom and I both balked at the high prices we faced that day.  Why?  Because had we shopped on Wednesday instead of Monday, we would have paid about half as much since the prices would have been 50 cents. And that's 50 cents per outfit, not fifty cents per piece.  A shirt is 50 cents and so is a three-piece suit.  Unbelievable!

2. Quality clothes.  If you have some time on your hands, you can find some quality pieces.  I get a big treat out of going through racks and racks of clothes, and making incredible finds.  One such find was a gorgeous, navy blue Jones New York suit.  Even after adding in the cost of dry cleaning, you still can't beat the price.

3.  Guilt-free shopping.  My mom and I started weight loss journeys a year or so ago.  When you're losing weight, you really don't want to spend a lot of money on clothes.  Why should you when you hope to be going down in size in pretty short order?  Thrift stores allow you to shop while you're losing weight rather than waiting until you get to your perfect size.

4.  Helping others.  Thrift stores are oftentimes affiliated with homeless and/or battered women's shelters, group homes for kids, and the like.  The monies taken in from the store sales go to support the shelters/homes and their residents.  Further, the clothing found in most thrift stores are donated.  As mom and I lost weight and our clothes became too big for us, we often donated them to various thrift stores and charities.  These stores sell some of the clothes while others are given directly to the residents they serve.

There was a time when I couldn't imagine wearing clothes that someone I didn't know had worn, but those days are long gone.  I know the care I've taken of the clothes I donate and realize that the same heart goes into the donations of others.

So what do you think of thrift store shopping?  I'm eager to hear about your recent discoveries and great finds.

Angela Benson is the award winning and bestselling author of fourteen novels, two novellas and a non-fiction writing book.  Her most recent book is Delilah’s Daughters (Avon, 2014).  Her next book, The Summer of Me, will be released by Avon in August 2015.  While you’re waiting for Angela’s new title, be sure to check out her backlist recently released in eBook format.  Join Angela on Facebook or her website.