Treat Christmas Shopping Like a Military Operation
November 24, 2015I recently ran into some old friends of mine at a school event. It’s amazing how people get paired with their opposites. The wife is carefree and never gets upset. The husband is about one obsession shy of having OCD.
As I was talking with them, I noticed the blood drained out of his face every time I mentioned Christmas. Not knowing if he experienced a tragic loss, I gently asked him what troubled him so much about Christmas. He took a deep breath, sighed and looked at me and said every Christmas he loses control of his best friends- Mr. Washington, Mr. Franklin, and with a catch in his voice, Mr. Jackson. Every Christmas his finance spins out of control. He said that he would like to make it through one Christmas without a “tragic loss.”
I asked him and his wife about their Christmas shopping strategy and they both looked at me blankly. I told them that if they do not have a strategy their spending will get out of control. My husband says I treat Christmas shopping like a military operation. Below are some tactics to survive the season:
Step 1) Evaluate available resources. In the military, the goal is to win wars. In shopping, it is to not go broke by January 1. Evaluating your resources means understanding exactly how much money you spend on gifts and creating a limit on how much you will spend on Christmas gifts.
Step 2) Triage. In the military, triage is assigning a degree of urgency to wounds. In shopping, it is who is going to get an actual Christmas present vs. the gift of your love. Decide this in advance. Typically children, spouses, and immediately families are first.
If you have a large extended family like me, you have to pick who you will give a gift to. Milk any events, weddings and/or birth announcements as opportunities to send framed pictures as gifts. Send wedding pictures to your family to represent your first family holiday as a married couple. Put a Christmas hat on a screaming infant and you have inexpensive gifts for the whole family. (You can milk this one for at least 4 years.)
Step 3) Have a plan of attack. In the military, this would mean you are going to map out what maneuver you are going to use to surprise the enemy. With Christmas shopping, the enemy are other shoppers ready to take your gifts. If you are on a tight budget, Google consignment stores in the most expensive parts of town to find great gifts, many still packaged.
Start early and slowly start buying Christmas gift bags/wrapping paper at the dollar stores (they go quickly) and take advantage of all of the “pre-Black Friday” sales. If you are brave enough to do Black Friday, enjoy. I can’t deal with the craze and I am normally done with my holiday shopping by November.
If you are taking kids, have a bribing strategy because that is the only way you are going to survive shopping with children. My favorite is ice cream at the mall or cake pops and at Starbucks. Give stipulations as to what behavior you expect in order for them to get their treats. I know they should behave no matter what, but I need cooperative kids while finding deals and I will use any means necessary, including a sugar rush, to finish shopping.
Step 4) Plan for the unexpected. In the military, you are always told to be prepared for the unexpected. In Christmas shopping, leave room in your budget for that unexpected gift you received, which means you now have to buy a gift. Plan for last minute holiday parties and days where you are too tired to cook and want to eat out.
You don’t need to have a tragic loss this Christmas. With a bit of military-like planning, you can make it through the holidays without going into “sticker shock” in January. Creating a spending budget for Christmas, deciding who you will buy gifts for and shopping early can go a long way into making the holiday season less stressful.