Retrospect thinking

I was going back and going through my finances the other day and trying to see if I've been successful at saving money. All in all, I think I've done very well. I was worried that I went a bit overboard at Christmas but I really tried to be careful and get the best deals on my purchases. I started early with browsing the thanksgiving ads on the Black Friday sites and I made a list of each item I wanted and in which store it was located. When you're trying to save money, planning is the key factor. You can't really be spontaneous where money is concerned when you're on a budget. I'm a big fan of Target so I wanted to know well in advance everything that Target was going to have to offer in their Christmas Madness/Black Friday sale. The use of Black Friday ads was extremely beneficial in helping me to adhere to my budget that I'd enforced upon myself. This was the first year I'd ever done my planning online versus waiting for all of the print ads to come out. I can guarantee you, this will now be my routine.

Let's face it, for most of us, our lives are pretty much computer based. We do our jobs on computers, we manage our finances on computers and we even do our shopping on computers. So it makes perfect sense for me to be able to sit down and plan out a shopping strategy on the computer. I certainly hope they keep these sites active and promote them as much next Christmas as they did this previous holiday season. I'll still be on a budget and I'll also be 5,000 miles away from my family so I'm going to have to save money in any way that I can. Shipping charges are a real killer!!