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Money Saving Tips For Christmas Presents

The Christmas season is just around the corner and with it comes joy of giving and receiving gifts. If you have been experiencing some financial difficulties this year, it is best come up with a strategy that can help you save a little on Christmas presents.

You shouldn’t let your financial concerns cloud your holidays, but you also don’t afford not to think about it and pile up a huge amount of debt.

Plan Ahead and Allocate a Fix Budget

The most important aspect that you want to keep in mind when shopping for Christmas gifts is not to leave it on the last minute. It is true that many stores have lots of great offers during Christmas season, but last minute shopping never goes as planned. Think about what you want to buy for your family and friends and adapt those wishes to your financial status.

Best way to do that is to make a lift with all the gifts and allocate them a fixed budget. This will help you stay organized, save time for other activities and most of all save some money.

Homemade Gifts

Homemade gifts are perfect if you need to save money on Christmas shopping; you get the chance to get your loved ones a beautiful and considerate present and also not stress out your budget.

Exchange Gifts

Many families have incorporated this practice into the Christmas traditions; it’s fun and help you save a lot of money. If you choose to go with the “Secret Santa” style, you will only have to buy a gift for one person. Think how good that will be for your budget. Plus, Christmas presents, are not about spending all the money you have; they are about putting some thought into the presents.

Vouchers

You might think that vouchers are not appropriate presents for Christmas but if you are on a tight budget them can be real budget savers.

Online Shopping

One of the best money savings tip, no matter the season, is to do your shopping online. You have a lot more possibilities, and you can compare prices without having to spend the whole day in a crowded shopping mall.

Outlet Mall

Get designer products at low prices; that way you can give your loved ones a beautiful present and not worry about spending all your Christmas budget on just one item.

Get some gifts after Christmas

If you have some family members of friends that you don’t have to see on Christmas Day buy their presents after Christmas. If you go with this approach, consider the strategy early, when planning the gifts and deciding the budget.

Money is always tight during the winter season; expenses are higher than usual, and saving some money on gifts can go a long way in helping you start the New Year debt free. You can always choose to skip giving presents this year but before taking a radical approach, try to come up with a strategy based on the advices above and you will surely be satisfied.

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Five Hazards Presented by Other Runners in Races

Participating in a race is the reward to many runners for weeks or months of training. But races present certain hazards. Here are five hazards that your fellow racers can present.

Hazard: Talking on a cellphone

“Distracted driving” is now appreciated by most motorists as a description of how dangerous it can be to talk on a cellphone while driving. Unfortunately, “distracted running” is not as well appreciated by many runners. And some of those runners create a hazard by talking on cellphones during races. While this is safe to do when such a runner has cautiously stopped on the side of the road or trail before making or taking a call, this is not safe for a runner to do while running.

Avoid this hazard by looking for runners with hands to heads and by runners who are running more slowly than those around them (because wireless headsets may be involved!).

Hazard: Listening to music with earphones

This hazard has become so common that some racing authorities ban earphones on the race course. If a runner is listening to music through earphones, then he or she is unlikely to hear emergency-responders, as well as fellow runners, as quickly as he or she should. And this failure to hear the sounds of the racing environment can lead to all sorts of accidents.

Avoid this hazard by looking for tell-tale cords hanging from other runners’ ears.

Hazard: Running backward

You may occasionally see a runner who is running backward along part of a race course — perhaps to work out some stiff muscles or joints or perhaps while calling out motivational messages to the runner whom he or she is facing. But runners do not have rear-view mirrors, and hazards abound in races, so someone who is running backward during a race can cause many problems.

Avoid this hazard by simply noticing when you see faces — instead of the backs of heads — in the racing crowd ahead of you.

Hazard: Wearing a bulky costume

Some races seem to attract runners wearing wacky costumes. While a costume can make the spectators laugh, it also can obscure the costume-wearer’s vision, which can lead to him or her running into others or more easily tripping on hazards that most runners will see and avoid.

Avoid this hazard by staying away from runners with costumes, especially ones that obscure their vision or can interfere with the movement of their feet.

Hazard: Running two or three abreast

This is a special kind of hazard. Some people have trained all season together for your race, so they want to complete the race together. Unfortunately, they can obscure your vision of what lies ahead, and they can abruptly move “in bulk” across a road or trail when one of them decides to stop for water or a toilet break.

Avoid this hazard by being extra cautious when passing a “wall” of runners.

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Are Your Offers Even Getting Presented to the Seller?

If you’re trying to buy a house in Southern California, your realtor may be submitting each and every one of your offers to the listing agent but some offers will never be presented to the Seller.

The following are just 10 of several reasons why one’s offer may sometimes NOT GET PRESENTED:

1) Failure to provide the “cross-qualifying” Approval Letter from the Sellers Preferred Lender. What this means is: The Listing-Agent/Bank Representative has specifically asked that ALL prospective buyers “cross-qualify” with the seller’s preferred Lender to verify that the Loan Approval provided by Buyer’s Lender came as a result of the most thorough vetting process. (keep in mind, you’re typically not obligated to use the seller’s preferred lender in order to get acceptance, though I’m certain some will tell you that at times, it can be the difference maker)

2) Lack of LEGIBILITY of One’s offer. Sometimes, the offer documentation must be faxed to the buyer for completion and signatures, then it must be re-faxed to the buyers agent. The buyers’ agent must then take that and fax it for the 3rd time to the Seller’s Agent. Then the Seller’s Agent has to fax it to the Sellers. The sellers then fax it back to the Seller’s Agent. In many cases, the Seller’s Agent has to fax it for the 6th time when he sends it to the Bank’s Representative who reviews all offers. (When ever possible, it’s recommend that you and your realtor use electronic signatures at least for the submittal of initial offers. The method is not only faster, it’s completely legible and the Listing-Agents greatly appreciate not having to try to make heads or tails of the multi-faxed documents or poor penmanship of authors)

3) Incorrectly completed Offers or Misspelling of verbiage entered by Buyer’s Agent. These 2 mistakes often give the impression to the Listing-agent that the Agent may be New or possibly challenged in other ways. (Believe me, It matters!) Ps. YES, that is the correct way to spell VERBIAGE.;-)

4) Buyer’s Earnest money deposit may be too low. The average earnest money deposit sought by sellers in most areas is between 1% to 3% of the purchase price. (for Cash buyers, it’s almost always going to be at least 3%)

5) Buyer is requesting an Escrow timeline that’s too far into the future. Most sellers are genuinely interested in finalizing a transaction in as close to 30 days as possible. Though it can sometimes be tough to accomplish that with certain Loan types, it’s typically best to submit one’s offer with an illustration of as close to a 30 day escrow as possible. Extensions are often obtainable so long as reasonable progress is being made. (Keep in mind that in the case of Bank-Owned homes, most of the contracts aka “Bank-Addendum’s” that come back from the Seller, typically allow for up to a 45 day escrow even if buyer originally submitted an offer promoting a close of escrow of 30 days. Banks sometimes prefer to grant additional time from the get-go as a cushion because they’d rather NOT CHARGE the buyer the typically required per-diem fees when closing late without extensions. Banks know that additional fees may cause the transaction to fall apart because of a buyer’s possible inability or lack of willingness to pay those penalty fees so they try to avoid it when they can.

6) SHORT-SALE Approval is authorized at a particular price and one offers lower than the Approved Price. What’s important for Buyer’s to remember is: Typically it has taken several months and in some cases more than a year to negotiate and arrive at the Approved Short-Sale Price. It would stand to reason then that, in most cases, having just authorized the Approval on the Price after such a long time, the note-holding bank is not likely to ACCEPT an offer for less.

7) Buyer is asking too much in the way of Seller-Concessions for repairs or money for Buyer’s closing-costs. In the end, it’s all about the NET OFFER to the seller. In most cases, the Seller will opt NOT to accept THOSE offers because they perceive financially-challenged buyers {who lack the funds for closing-costs} as having a higher risk of having a minor financial need during the escrow period which could absorb or exhaust the money they set aside for down-payment or as cash-reserves. This would, of course cause the transaction to CANCEL in most cases. Regarding a requests for repairs, often the Seller is interested in finalizing the transaction in a much shorter time-period than what would be required if repairs need to be made. Consequently, you’ll find many of THOSE homes marketed at price-points low enough to allow for only Cash-Buyers or Cash-Investors who recognize the Seller has already priced the listing as per it’s current condition. (Some buyers walk in and say, “I think we’ll offer less because it needs all this work” —Attention Buyer’s… In most cases of Bank-Owned homes, the current condition of the home has already been taken into account in arriving at the list-price)

8) Buyer is Offering too much for the house. That’s right, TOO MUCH. In their desperation, often buyer’s and their representing realtors will choose to institute a strategy of “Let’s just write all of our offers at $10k, $20k or $50k over list-price” (depending on the area). This strategy will often back-fire. You see, the Seller knows that this strategy is most often used by buyers with weak financial profiles (i.e.: needing closing-costs paid) or those buyers who perceive themselves as NOT being able to compete in the open market due to the type of financing they require (i.e…: FHA or VA). As such, a seller is sometimes more inclined to ACCEPT an offer from someone who is within the range of reasonably anticipated Appraisal Value than to simply jump on the highest priced offer which will ultimately need to be reduced anyway.

9) Employing the strategy of “…Let’s start low and see what they say… they can always send us a counter-offer”. WRONG! Don’t fall for this trap. If one seeks to buy a home in some of the very competitive areas of Southern California, it’s important to know that in most cases, you’ll only get ONE-SHOT at submitting an offer. This is because the homes in good condition or with the lowest prices, or in the most desirable areas, will almost ALWAYS get multiple-offers. Sometimes as many as 30 to 40 if a listing-agent doesn’t check out their email in-box or fax machine over a weekend. In the competitive market climates, you’re almost always best to work closely with your realtor to prepare your HIGHEST & BEST offer up-front and submit THAT.

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