{"id":26,"date":"2011-12-20T22:31:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T22:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.wordpress.com\/2011\/12\/20\/creative-gifting"},"modified":"2011-12-20T22:31:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T22:31:00","slug":"creative-gifting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"Creative Gifting"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align:left;\">Along with holiday cheer comes what feels like Santa&#8217;s choke-hold on my bank account. Don&#8217;t get me wrong, I love nothing more than to find the PERFECT gift for someone I love. However, my finances are still recovering from a wedding a few months ago and with the economy the way it is, money just isn&#8217;t what it used to be! This gift-giving season, I&#8217;ve had to be a bit more creative than in past years. I don&#8217;t want to be selfish, so here are some creative cost-cutting ideas:<\/p>\n<div>\n<ul style=\"text-align:left;\">\n<li>Those of you who shop months in advance; it&#8217;s great if you know exactly what you want to give someone and that the price won&#8217;t fluctuate (for instance, any apple product). But, the sales get better the closer you get to Christmas. This year, Christmas falls on a Saturday, giving many retail stores a full week to lure you in with promises of 30%, 40% and yes, I&#8217;ve even seen 50% off all purchases.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Do you have a credit card with a points rewards benefit? It isn&#8217;t cheap if you use them to buy a FANTASTIC gift! For instance, someone on my Christmas list had a very expensive item that nobody in the family could swing because they&#8217;d already done their shopping. Lo and behold, it was on American Express&#8217;s shopping site for a discounted point value. Wouldn&#8217;t your loved one rather get the gift of their dreams, even if it isn&#8217;t purchased with your cold, hard cash?<\/li>\n<li>Nordstrom Rack and Marshalls are LIVESAVERS. I got a good portion of my shopping done here and for a fraction of the price. Michael Kors wallet at half price? Yes, please! Kenneth Cole winter jacket for under $100? WINNING. Again, nobody has to know what you paid for it &#8211; all that matters is that you can afford to give it to them!<\/li>\n<li>Do you have any stray gift cards from returns or purchases earlier in the year that you aren&#8217;t using? Now&#8217;s the time to break &#8217;em out and put them to use. It is still your money &#8211; you just aren&#8217;t spending it on yourself! Sharing is caring, folks!&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>Now, I don&#8217;t want what I&#8217;ve said here to be misconstrued. Don&#8217;t be cheap! Just be thoughtful and use EVERYTHING you have at your disposal for those who you care about! Happy Shopping!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img width='1' height='1' src='' alt='' \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Along with holiday cheer comes what feels like Santa&#8217;s choke-hold on my bank account. Don&#8217;t get me wrong, I love nothing more than to find the PERFECT gift for someone I love. However, my finances are still recovering from a wedding a few months ago and with the economy the way it is, money just [&hellip;]&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/?p=26\" class=\"post-read-more\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/perfectlyeventful.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}