Deck the Halls and Decorate for Christmas While on A Budget

Millions of Americans love to celebrate Christmas. When asked, the majority of individuals respond that Christmas is one of their favorite holidays, if not their favorite. If you love to celebrate Christmas, there is a good chance that you may also love decorating your home for Christmas. Unfortunately, if you're not careful, decorating your home can become quite expensive. However, if you want to decorate for Christmas, but you, like so many others, have had to downsize due to our country's unfortunate recession, and you do not have an unlimited amount of money to do so, there are ways that you can deck the halls and decorate for Christmas while on a budget.

 

Deciding ahead of time can be a good way to save money on Christmas decorations. Unfortunately, a large number of shoppers, perhaps yourself included, have a difficult time with impulse buying. However, if you are on a limited budget, it is advisable not to give into any impulse buying urges. This is why you may want to determine ahead of time what you'd like to buy. It's possible that you're uncertain exactly what you would like to buy, which of course is fine, but it may be a good idea to concentrate on which rooms that you want to decorate for Christmas and which rooms you do not. And perhaps have a color theme in mind to help narrow down your choices, using this method, will make it easier for you to eliminate unnecessary purchases.

Once you have an idea of which type of Christmas decorations that you would like to buy, you can start your shopping; but, it is important to remember your goal of saving money. As much as you may enjoy decorating for Christmas, you do not want to spend more money on decorations than is within your budget. Keep in mind, the less money you spend on Christmas decorations, the more money you will have to put towards Christmas gifts or other festive events.

 

When shopping for Christmas decorations on a budget, perhaps one of your first stops should be to your local dollar store. While many individuals assume that the items sold in dollar stores are of poor quality, that's not always true. In fact, around Christmastime, you can get some really nice Christmas decorations for a dollar or less. Depending on the dollar store you choose to shop at, you should be able to walk away with Christmas pictures, Christmas wall hangings, Christmas tree decorations, Christmas lights, and even Christmas towels and potholders for your kitchen. When choosing a dollar store, keep in mind, not all dollar stores are created equal. For instances, Dollar Tree one of the largest dollar store franchises, has a location in Oak Park, MI on Nine Mile Rd. which is quite large, well stocked and always clean. And they have a huge selection of gift bags and Christmas decorations to choose from. On the other hand, the Dollar Tree store on Jonesboro Rd. (exact location will not be provided) in Georgia does not even compare; it's small, cramped and ridiculously under stock. So, do your due diligence. Just because you're decking your halls on a budget does not mean you should be subjected to a substandard atmosphere.

In addition to dollar stores, you may also want to check out a few discount stores as well. Discount stores, in most cases, tend to carry a wide variety of different products, including Christmas decorations.

One discount store in particular where you will be able to find a huge variety of wonderful and affordable Christmas decorations, is Big Lots stores. Inside tip: Not only does Big Lots offer some of the best bargains during the holiday season – to help you maintain your budget, but after the Christmas season they offer some super mark-downs on their Christmas decorations - anywhere from seventy-five to ninety percent off.

For the largest selection of Christmas decorations, you will want to shop early, but for the best prices, you may want to wait until it gets closer to Christmas. In fact, let me repeat this tip; the best bargains are normally found right after Christmas and the discounts can range anywhere from seventy-five to ninety percent off. Although shopping right after Christmas won't help you this year, it may very well help you get a jump on gathering some super cutesy decorations that you can use to affordably deck the halls of your home, next year.

QuiBids or Quick Scam? You Be The Judge

I stumbled upon a site I didn’t know existed or simply had ignored, called QuiBids.com it proclaims itself to be:

“a fun and exciting, fast-paced auction website. On QuiBids, you can win all sorts of popular products at amazing low prices,”

That sounds great! exciting! and fun! doesn’t it?  Well that’s what I thought as well.  What I didn’t count on, but should have known was that…

“but you must purchase bids before you can win. “

And in order to do that you must,

“choose the Bid Pack you want and fill out your payment information on the right. “  Have no fear, because “QuiBids accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express.”

In the help section it indicates that QuiBids offers 45, 75, 300, 600 and 800 bids.  Here are 3 bids packs that I found on the site:

Click to learn How does QuiBids work?

Above is a screen capture of a bid in progress for a Nikon D90 12.3 MP DSLR camera and lens.

Keep in mind, lilylee had this bid won with only 1 second left on the clock, but wouldn’t you know it, up pops a bid from willID3 which adds another $.01¢ to the price, which isn’t bad, but if lilylee had it won at less than $10.00 why is the bid still going at $22.33?  Because along with the additional $.01¢ for each bid, a timer is reset with another 0:20 seconds yes, that’s right every time someone else bids another 0:20 seconds is added to the timer.  Ummmm makes you wonder. 

Well, the bidding for the above item is closed and the winner is, Jennyleigh who placed 7 bids @ .60¢ = $4.20 with a final price of only $46.13 – that’s a heck of a bargain on a camera retailing at more than a thousand dollars.  I wish I could have made that deal, but I don’t think I’m ready to take that plunge yet – I need to do more research.  In the meantime, I’ve come across a few reviews that I found interesting, and you may too.

Here’s what a few reviewers had to say regarding QuiBids and how it works:

• “SCAM SCAM SCAM (mathematical screw-you to the buyers). AVOID!
  It costs $.60 to place a bid, so you think you are getting something cheap but end up spending $30-$40 on just bids and still end up being outbid. You can only bid in small increments (1 to 5 cents). The site is a scam for the bidders and a cash cow for the operators. …SCAM SCAM SCAM…How do you even know that you are being outbid by real people? It could be robot account owned by the website that outbids everyone last second in order to increase the number of bids and the website's total profit…So my advice for this site is WALK AWAY. read entire review”

• Penny Auctions my personal opinion is don’t get involved with them unless you have at least 75% of the retail price of the product you are seeking to purchase.  Another thing is before you get into a website like Quibids.com make sure you READ the terms and conditions and also understand what you are getting yourself into….read more

• QuiBids & Swoopo, two names I found doing the same thing. It’s genius. Each bid cost 60 cents but each bid only increments the price by a couple cents or maybe a nickle … so think about it. You buy a block of bids, say the minimum of 40, which cost you $24.00. You bid on an item and that bid cost you 60 cents but the item amount only increased a nickel. So if you are bidding on an item that is at $4.00 and it started at zero … there have already been 80 bids placed if each bid increments a nickel. At $4, they have already made $24. Say the item finally sells for $100. At 5 cent bid increments, it took 2000 bids to reach $100 and at 60 cents per bid they just made $1200 on a $100 sale. If the increments are only 2 cents per bid, they made $3000 on a $100 sale. If you won, you pay the winning amount plus all the amount you spent on the bids, plus shipping, so you just spent $124 + shipping.

I don’t know, after watching the bidding on the Nikon D90 – a camera I’d really like to have and to be able to get it for only $43.13,  that would be wonderful!  But the length of time it took for the experienced bidders to close this deal and to see it go to someone who entered the bidding long after the original bidder, makes me wonder if I would stand a chance on QuiBids.com. 

Final thought, at an auction if someone out bids you, you DON’T still have to pay your offered bid; that’s not the case with QuiBids, even if you’re out bid, you’re going to have to pay the money you’ve offered to bid.   The site may appear to offer unbelievably great deals, and it does – at a cost.   Just remember to READ all the terms and conditions, but also be prepared to pay sums of money for something you still may not even get.