Clark's Big Book of Bargains (23 page)

Hiring a formal wedding planner is a big expense, and one you may want to avoid. If you don’t want to spend the money on one, ask a friend who’s not a bridesmaid to hold on to all the contracts (and bring them to the wedding) and to keep charge of the wedding checklist. If the caterer says they weren’t supposed to bring pork tenderloin and they were, you don’t want to worry about it. You want your friend to pull out the contract and show the caterer the pork tenderloin clause. Make sure to thank your friend in the same manner as you would a bridesmaid.

Good planning and organization helped one of my callers a lot. Jenny had planned the perfect wedding and reception for more than a year. Everything went smoothly until they reached the reception hall. She had been very specific both on the phone and in writing to the caterer that no pine nuts were to be used in any of the food. Jenny has a severe life-threatening allergy to them. Minutes into the reception, Jenny bit into her meal and tasted pine nuts. She had to leave her own reception to go to the hospital.

After writing a letter to the reception hall (the caterer was part of the hall’s package), and showing them her instructions to the caterer as well as her hospital bill, all of her money was refunded for the reception. The reason Jenny was able to get a refund so swiftly is that she documented everything. Her instructions to the caterer were clear and in writing.

Her memory of that evening cannot be refunded, but I am happy to report that she used the refunded reception money toward a down payment on a new home, turning a difficult situation into an investment in her future.

• Tips on Weddings •

• By having both the wedding and honeymoon at a resort, you can save thousands of dollars.
  

• With a traditional wedding, the first thing to decide is how much you can afford to spend. If your parents are paying, ask them what they’re willing to spend.
  

• The reception is the most expensive component. A sit-down dinner is a lot more expensive than a brunch or a dessert/champagne reception.
  

• You can save tons of money by having your wedding on a Tuesday or Thursday night instead of a Saturday. Or you can save by having your wedding in January instead of June.
  

• It’s possible to save money on every aspect of the wedding, including music, flowers, limo, invitations, and photography.
  

• Internet •

• www.theknot.com
  

* CHRISTMAS SHOPPING *

The Christmas season is a dangerous time for your wallet. You’re in the stores looking for the perfect gift for family and friends, and you see a few things you like for yourself as well. The result is, you end up buying more than you planned, and spending too much.

You can help resist that temptation by starting your holiday shopping with a plan. Put together a list of everyone you want to buy a gift for, including yourself. Then decide how much money you can realistically afford to spend on everyone, including yourself. Don’t budget more for gifts than you can pay for right away, or certainly by the end of February. I’d prefer that you don’t borrow at all for Christmas, but the reality is that a lot of people do. Still, I don’t want you to become one of the people who’s still paying for last Christmas a year later.

After you have the total, whether it’s $100 or $3,000, write down next to each person’s name how much you expect to spend on them. If the individual totals exceed your budget, you have to either strike some people off your list or start cutting how much you’re going to spend. Some people think budgeting takes some of the fun out of Christmas. But spending too much for gifts is kind of like drinking too much on New Year’s Eve. You end up with a painful hangover the next day.

Keep your list on a sheet of paper that’s small enough to carry with you when you go shopping. Men should keep the list in their wallet, women in their wallet or purse. That way you can refer to the list as you shop, and adjust it if need be. If you spend more on someone than you intended, you can subtract from someone else.

When to Shop

A lot of people ask me whether they should start their shopping on the frenzied first day after Thanksgiving, when some stores open at 7
A.M.
and crowds wait outside to get in. If you use a list to shop and if you can handle the crowds, that first “official” shopping day and the weekend that follows really is a brilliant time to buy. Stores offer some fantastic deals in the early-morning darkness of the Friday after Thanksgiving. One year I bought a 19-inch stereo TV at Kmart for $69—by far the lowest price I’ve ever seen for that kind of TV. Of course, the reason they offer those deals is to get you into the store to buy other things. If you play the game right, you’ll score some great deals. Just stick to your list, not necessarily the items, but the people and the money. You may get into a store and find an advertised special you overlooked, or an unadvertised special that could be a better deal than what you had planned to buy.

Most Christmas shopping occurs the week before Christmas, not right after Thanksgiving. And that’s an odd time to shop because some items will be at their most expensive, while others will be their most affordable. Anything that’s seasonal—a Christmas sweater or decoration perhaps—will be on sale the week before Christmas. Electronics items tend to be extra pricey at the last minute, because that’s when the panic buyers, not price-conscious buyers, are shopping. That’s true of jewelry as well.

The very best time to buy is about January 10, for the following Christmas. The sale fliers make it look like the best bargains are the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. But so many people have that week off from work that they use the after-Christmas sales as an excuse to go shop some more. If you wait until Jan. 10, the stuff that really didn’t sell is available at great prices, there’s no traffic, and the stores are empty. Go ahead and make your list then and get what you need. My wife and I do most of the year’s Christmas shopping before January has ended.

Some people like to pick up a few gifts throughout the year, maybe while they’re on vacation. But that’s not going to work unless you’ve already made out your list. Without your list, you may buy something and then forget you’ve bought it, or you’ll overspend.

Trees

Artificial Christmas trees now vastly outsell “real” Christmas trees. If you’re interested in buying an artificial Christmas tree, you can save a lot of money by waiting until January to buy it. You won’t have the tree for this season, but you will have it for years and years to come.

The best bargains on real Christmas trees are at the two big home-improvement retailers: Home Depot and Lowe’s. They’ve become enormous sellers of Christmas trees, hurting sales at the independent lots. It’s a great strategy for the stores. They simply convert their garden centers into Christmas centers. They have a pretty wide selection and their prices are fantastic, with most trees selling for $19 to $29.

I recommend you buy a Christmas tree early rather than late, because you’ll get a better selection and you’ll be able to display the tree longer, so your cost-per-day of owning it will be less. In some parts of the country, people buy their Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, or the week before Christmas. In other regions, people buy their tree right after Thanksgiving. Whatever the regional preference, if you buy early you’ll get the best deal. Just keep it watered, so you don’t create a fire hazard.

Toys

A big part of Christmas for many families is buying toys for the kids. And that’s where a lot of money can go down the drain—on expensive, high-tech toys your kids may not even like. I did a toy test for a TV report that was fascinating. We bought hundreds of toys, then brought together different groups of children and parents. The children played with the toys (they didn’t know any of the brand names) and the parents observed and kept score of what the kids liked. To their amazement, and also to mine, the toys children played with the longest and enjoyed the most were the “classic” toys that have stood the test of time. They liked the train sets, doctor kits, and dolls—not the latest, greatest, heavily advertised toys. I was blown away, because it didn’t come out at all like I expected. Because kids are so bombarded with advertising, I was sure they would prefer the toys they’d heard about on TV. The kids did play first with toys they had seen on TV, but they lost interest in those toys quickly. Then they played with the toys that required more imagination.

The neatest thing about these classic toys is that many retailers now offer copies under their private labels, good-quality stuff that’s very inexpensive. I put together a Top Ten list of the kids’ favorites, and many of the toys could be purchased for $9 to $15 at stores like Wal-Mart. It isn’t necessary at all for parents to spend a lot of money to buy gifts that make their children happy. Kids will beg you for specific gifts, things they probably will get bored with before long. If you can afford it, you might buy one of those ad-driven items, but fill out the rest of your list with classic toys.