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" What You need to know: One of the biggest pleasures of the year is finding the perfect gifts for the people on your list \u2014 the perfume your teenager will just love (Chanel Chance, in my daughter&amp;#039;s case), the perfect gizmo for your hard-to-please father-in-law. But that can be offset by the looming worry: How can I afford all those presents? Let GH help you curb that stress. We&amp;#039;ve rounded up insider money-saving strategies that will help you coast through the season without overextending yourself \u2014 or your wallet.  1. BUY WHEN THE PRICE IS RIGHT If you&amp;#039;ve been eyeing a certain designer bag for a sister or a digital camera for your husband, you don&amp;#039;t have to keep stopping at the mall or checking online to see if prices have dropped. New multi-tasking sites, like shoppingnotes.com and shopittome.com, send alerts when the prices of items you&amp;#039;re interested in are reduced. How it works: You sign up with your e-mail address and note the brands and/or items you want to track; you&amp;#039;ll then get e-mail messages when the goods go on sale. Shoppingnotes.com rewards you with $1 toward a gift card for every friend you refer. And if you get 10 friends to sign up for shopittome.com, you&amp;#039;ll qualify to select a $10 card from one of 11 merchants, including Starbucks, Sephora, and J. Crew. (That, in turn, makes a great gift for a favorite babysitter.) Another way to make sure you&amp;#039;re nabbing a low price: Use Amazon&amp;#039;s new Price Check app for your iPhone. You scan a bar code, snap a picture, or say or type in a product name. The app will then quickly find the lowest available prices from Amazon and its online merchants.  2. CASH IN ON OLD ELECTRONICS Trade in anything from a used iPod to a Nook e-reader at Best Buy \u2014 whether or not you bought it there \u2014 to get some dough back. Go to bestbuy.com/tradein to see what your item is worth, then ship your merchandise to the company with a prepaid label or bring it to a participating store. Choose either a rebate gift card or a check (which will be of lesser value). For example, on the day we checked, a Casio cell phone in good condition (some electronics in nonworking condition may still get you a small rebate) was worth a $29 gift card or a $19 check. That can help cover the cost of a holiday gift. 3. STAY LOCAL Save gas, time, and stress while supporting your town&amp;#039;s economy. Check out places you pass every day for gifts \u2014 the hardware store may have pretty madeleine and Bundt pans and practical coffeemakers; Whole Foods Market has nice bath salts by the ounce; the deli may sell &amp;quot;coupons&amp;quot; for free sandwiches; and drugstores usually stock gift cards for the Olive Garden, jcpenney, and Applebee&amp;#039;s that teachers will love.  Also, log on to Facebook and &amp;quot;like&amp;quot; big chains that have stores in your town. Rite Aid, for instance, often offers special Facebook bonuses \u2014 such as a printable coupon for $3 off Sally Hansen Nail Polish, which makes a nice stocking stuffer \u2014 and also dangles gift card rewards (between $5 and $20 for spending $25 to $100). For more savings, go to shoplocal.com; it gives you online access to circulars for stores in your neighborhood and has a search function that lets you view only the products that are on sale, making your gift-buying even easier. Next:  4. PICK A SECONDHAND APPLE Your son is pining for an iPad? Who isn&amp;#039;t? Now it can be more affordable to buy one. Over the past year, Apple has introduced a whole crop of refurbished products, ones that left the warehouse or store but were returned to Apple stores or apple.com. Some never made it out of the box, some were opened but not used, some were used \u2014 for whatever reason, somebody didn&amp;#039;t want them. But each has a fresh battery and outer shell and looks and works like brand-new, the company says.  We saw an iPad for $429, versus the list price of $499 (a 14 percent savings). Apple tests and certifies each pre-owned item and includes a one-year limited warranty, the same as they offer for their new products. As an extra incentive, all of the revamped items ship for free.  So if you&amp;#039;re interested in shopping for laptops, iPods, and more, go to the apple.com store. Then search for Special Deals. Inventory goes quickly, so you may want to pounce as soon as you find an item that&amp;#039;s on your holiday list.  5. SCOPE OUT FREE SHIPPING  Postage or UPS fees can sour a good online deal \u2014 you may be thrilled with the bargain you&amp;#039;ve found until you see the thickly padded charges at the last minute. Check freeshipping.org for sites and coupon codes that minimize the cost. L.L.Bean now ships free one-way to addresses in the U.S. and Canada, with no minimum order. If you register at nike.com, you&amp;#039;ll qualify for free shipping if you spend more than $100, and you&amp;#039;ll get free return shipping on any purchase.  Another holiday habit that will help you save: Stick to gift cards that ship at no cost (after all, they&amp;#039;re so light) and never expire, from retailers like amazon.com, itunes.com (for movies, TV shows, or music), sephora.com (each arrives in its own mirrored compact), and macys.com (which offers personalized cards, featuring photos you upload, for an extra $3.05). You may want to avoid American Express gift cards, though; each will cost you $2.95 to $6.95 in addition to the card&amp;#039;s face value.  6. GET TWO GIFTS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE If you&amp;#039;re buying a book published by HarperCollins, check bookperk.com before buying elsewhere online. The publisher often offers promotional tie-ins \u2014 a chef&amp;#039;s tool packaged with a cookbook, chocolates with a novel, or makeup with a beauty book \u2014 for insiders who sign up for free at the site. Bonus: The bundled gifts usually ship at no charge. That&amp;#039;s the kind of flourish that turns a nice gift into a truly notable one.  Deals are valid for only seven days in most cases, and they sometimes sell out because quantities are limited \u2014 good reasons to log on early in the gift-giving season. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/money/advice/a18856/holiday-shopping-tips/>