Friday, October 8, 2010

Holiday Savings Tips- #4

Hello Readers!

It has been a busy and exciting week for me on the gift giving front. As I continue the journey with my remaining team I look forward to using the strategies I presented to you a few weeks ago and to give you real life examples of what they are doing. These tips they have learned will be coming in the next few weeks, but this week I am going to focus on 1 strategy and tell you what I did to earn some great FREE items this week.

I am sad that my holiday savings team has shrunk a bit. I have 1 saver, who has had to drop out because of life (moving/guests visiting, etc.). This is life and I have lived long enough to know that challenges always present themselves! I am going to miss this team member being along with us for the journey! However, she promises to keep reading and I hope you will too! We still have 3 or 4 ladies who remain with me on this journey.

My first tip this week that I do want to share is that saving can benefit you a lot or a little, it is truly based on the time you have to devote to it! If you can devote a little, you will save a little. If you can devote more, you will multiply those savings! However, regardless of the time you can put into it....you will save $ ALL THE TIME and that is good news! Those of you following these steps, I hope that you will share or comment to the blog what you have found or done for your holiday gifts.

This week I am going to focus on the strategy of hosting a home based party. This is the kind of strategy where you have a party in your home and you present a product to friends/family and you earn "free items" based on party sales. I love this strategy because 1) I make sure my house is really clean 2) I get to have people over and we get to learn things and 3) I have the opportunity to earn items for FREE and in this case towards my holiday gifts!

The company I chose was Pampered Chef with Laura Caldwell. I wanted our party to focus on inexpensive holiday gift ideas and Laura delivered! My guests left with some great holiday gift giving tips and I earned a bundle in free products! I like pampered chef because they have a generous host discount plan. You always get a host special (for Oct is is 60% off cookware), 1/2 price items and free products-all dependent on total sales, the more sold the more you get!

I ended up with the option to purchase 1 piece of open stock cookware at 60% off, 2-1/2 price items and $90 in FREE products. This was going to help me greatly in checking off items on my holiday list and with a party such as this I like to think about gifts I may need into next year as well.

I got:
8" Saute Pan for 60% off, bringing it down to just $18!!
1/2 Price Pizza Kit $21.25
1/2 Price Bamboo Pepper/Salt Grinders $26
Muffin Pan-Free
Grilling Set-Free
Classic Scraper-Free
1-2-3 Dip Set-Free
Small Slotted Turner-Free
Beer Bread Mix-Free
Herb Seasonings-Free

I love having the opportunity to get FREE Stuff for only doing a little bit of work! I will combine the Saute Pan/Turner/Classic Scraper into a wedding gift for a couple next year. The pizza kit will be for a teacher. The bamboo salt/pepper mill is for a relative for Christmas. The Grilling Set is going to another relative for Christmas along with the BBQ tool kit I got using my HSN $20 off $20 code I featured on Facebook last week. The other items will become filler and/or stocking stuffers for other people on my list. I made a nice dent this week!

A couple of tips for pampered chef or other party incentives:
-If 1/2 price items are offered....see if they have items grouped in special kits so you can get more for your money! The pizza kit above features a pizza cutter, pizza stone and pizza crust mix, but since it is grouped as 1 item I actually get 3 things at 1/2 off in that kit....a great deal!
-Consider checking on what the host deal will be for that month and match it your party date with a month that has a host gift that will benefit you!
-Many companies offer incentives if you have others book parties. Pampered Chef gives you the opportunity to get the host special up to 6 months past your party when friends book parties. For example, I have a friend who is hosting a party in Dec. so I will get to take advantage of the host special and I don't have to do anything....even more discounts!!


I hope you will consider this strategy as we move into the holidays, it's a great way to score some inexpensive or FREE merchandise!

Happy Saving!

Summer H.

Homework Holiday Savers: This week as I begin to call you and discuss strategies more in depth, I would like you to think about the strategies you told me you were interested in and try to pair those strategies with the recipients on your list. Which strategies do you think would work for those on your list? You don't have to answer me on this, just be thinking as we will be discussing this when I contact you this week!

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