Skip the holiday shopping rush!

It may only be October but before we know it, the holiday season will be here! In order to avoid the long line ups and last minute shopping in cold weather, try out these five suggestions on how to beat the holiday rush this season!

Order online

The easiest way to avoid the holiday rush is order your gifts from the comfort of your home - no need to worry about making it out to the mall after work or over the weekend. Instead, take time whenever you’re free to browse different retailers on line, and take advantage of sales or free shipping offers. If you aren’t always home during the day, you can have the items shipped to work. Some retailers will even let you ship items to the store, so you can pick it up during non-rush periods or whenever you have time.

Don’t wait around

Just because you’re shopping for the holidays doesn’t mean you have to wait for the holiday season to start shopping. You can start scoping out products or thinking of ideas year-round, as early as January! Whenever you get an idea or think of something that might work, write it down or purchase it in advance - don’t wait until the last minute. When you shop during non-peak or seasonal periods, you can often get good deals on popular items and cut back on your spending for holiday gifts. Just keep in mind that if you do start shopping earlier, you’ll need to have a place to store your items that is out of reach from prying eyes!

Make your gift

If you have a talent or hobby, put it to good use over the holidays and make your gifts from scratch! Not all gifts have to be extravagant and purchased from a store - homemade gifts are just as good, and even more special, because of the time you spent making it for your friends and family. Consider baking holiday treats and chocolates, and putting together gift baskets and boxes for friends and co-workers. If you like doing crafts, make a wreath or holiday centre piece that family can use to decorate their homes. If you have people on your list that are always busy or are going through a difficult time, consider pre-making frozen meals or putting together a meal basket with all the items needed to throw together a quick meal. Homemade gifts can be beautiful and practical!

Give an experience

What’s the best way to avoid the holiday rush? Don’t give a gift at all! Instead, give your friends and family the gift of an experience. Set-up a time to go on a movie night, participate in a cooking class, or go see a concert coming to town. This way, you don’t have to worry about making it to the store on time and wrapping a gift to give. Even better, experiences can be fun and memorable, without adding more clutter or objects to our homes and our lives. Going to a paint night or treating people to a nice meal out is something you can both enjoy together. It doesn’t have to be during the busy holiday season either. Make plans to go during a time that works best for everyone involved so you truly enjoy the experience without having to squeeze it in between other holiday events. A gift doesn’t always have to be a physical object.

Change your gift giving strategy

Shopping during the holidays can be stressful especially for people that have a long list of gifts to buy. Starting early and following the previous suggestions may help relieve the stress, might still doesn’t help the financial strain. Why not try changing the way you give gifts? Consider hosting a “Secret Santa” gift swap, or holding a gift exchange so each person involved is only responsible for buying one gift. Not only will it alleviate the time and money spent on gifts, it can make for a fun activity during the holidays! Also consider going together to buy one large group gift for someone. For example, if you’re buying a gift for your parents, decide on a larger item as a gift and go in together with your siblings. This way, everyone only needs to worry about one gift and you can share the responsibility of buying it, picking it up and wrapping it.

The holidays are supposed to be a peaceful and relaxing time, but end up being stressful because of the amount of events and tasks we “need” to do, like shopping for gifts. This year, skip the rush of holiday shopping and make sure you can actually enjoy the holiday season.

Make the holidays about the experience, not the stuff!

The holidays always seem to fly by, as many people are occupied with shopping, cooking, baking and travelling. A lot of time is spent planning and completing tasks to enjoy the holidays, but many of us end up not enjoying the holidays because of this. Make this holiday season one that you will actually enjoy by eliminating some of the tasks that normally add a lot of stress.

One of the biggest costs of stress during this time is gift giving – a lot of time (and money) is spent buying gifts, sometimes for many people! Instead, talk with your family, friends, and co-workers and come up with an alternate gift giving solution that everyone can participate in.

For example, consider doing a draw for “Secret Santa” and set a dollar limit that works for every person’s budget. While this may not be the best option for children, this idea works great for adults. There are even apps available that will randomly match people (like this one) that will make sure no one draws their own name, and even lets people upload a list of possible gift ideas. Hosting a “Secret Santa” gift exchange will save everyone money and time, as they won’t have to go and buy as many gifts as they normally would.

Alternatively, you could host a gift exchange where everyone buys one generic present, and people can exchange or steal gifts until everyone has one item. Not only does it also save you from buying more gifts, it’s also a fun activity to enjoy with family and friends. With less time spent shopping, wrapping presents, and delivering gifts, you will be able to spend more time experiencing the holiday season.

While giving and receiving gifts is fun, they are not as valuable as spending time with family and friends. Careful planning and shopping in advance may help reduce some of your stress, but you’ll be even more relaxed when you can completely eliminate one of the many tasks you plan to do this month. The holidays should be about the experience, not just the gifts or items that you give and receive!

Junk or not junk? Know the difference before you donate!

Decluttering is a major part of any organization project – but once you’ve sorted through your items and decided on what to keep, what do you do with the rest of it? How can you tell what items are junk, and what items can be donated?

More often than not, people donate their used items to charities (especially during the holiday season), but the items they donate are actually junk. When this happens, volunteers and charity organizers have to sort through and dispose of these items, which is a waste of time and very limited resources. Before you bring over a box of items to donate, make sure you remove anything that is broken, torn, rusted, or no longer works. Ask yourself what made you decide to get rid of it in the first place – is it just because you have grown out of it or grown out of love with it? Or is it because it is in disrepair or bad condition? If it’s the latter, it probably means that the item should be tossed.

There are organizations that will accept donations of items that are not in good condition, but make sure that you look up the donation guidelines before bringing anything that is old and worn. For example, Clothing of a Cause has old clothing drop-off bins at most landfills, where the clothing is sold to international recycling companies and repurposed in a variety of ways. However, most charities are looking for items that will be given to people in need. If the items aren’t good enough for you, they probably aren’t good enough for someone else either.

However, there are some items that can break and be repaired, like most furniture, appliances, and even some clothing. With a small investment of time or money, you can breathe new life into items that can be reused or donated to organizations who can find a meaningful new home for them. This will take extra time and effort, so make sure that you are willing to put in the extra work before you decide to repair something.

Not only do you need to consider if it is junk or not, but you also want to make sure that any items that have multiple parts or pieces are kept together. For example, some toys have multiple pieces that should be grouped together or put into one bag. Some items won’t work unless all the pieces are used, and it won’t do any good for charities to receive an item that doesn’t function properly.

Everyone wants to be able to help others and prevent more items from going into a landfill. However, there are some items that cannot be reused or repaired, and should not be donated to a charity. When this happens, more time and work has to be undertaken by the charity to sort through the items. It might help to think of the item this way: would you pay money for this? If not, that probably means the item belongs in the garbage bin, not the donation box. Before you donate, make sure your items are worth donating.