Holiday shopping can be a stressful and expensive endeavor for a multitude of reasons, but there are a lot of ways to ease the stress that comes with holiday shopping and the pressure that comes with it as well. 

Make a list of people to buy gifts for, and be sure to check it twice. 

Planning out a good holiday shopping spree starts with making a list of those who you need to shop for and makes deciding who to shop for much easier as well as ensuring no one is left out of the realm of gift receivers. If there are people who are harder to shop for in your list, it’s beneficial to put them on top to prioritize their gifts. Therefore, the easier people to shop for are towards the bottom of the list so it’s a less stressful way of going through the list of people.  

Plan out what stores you need to go to  

This point goes along with the list of people, if there are certain stores that sell gifts for a lot of people on your list, going there first to knock a lot of people off your list is beneficial and saves time and gas. Knowing what stores, you’re shopping at can also allow you to have things ready for pickup on arrival, which saves a lot of time when there isn’t a line to be in to make purchases. 

Shop Online  

Shopping online can be just as, if not more effective, than in person shopping since it isn’t a race to purchase an item or get to an aisle for something as seen in stores. Although sometimes things are sold out, the stress of in-person shopping isn’t felt online, but making sure you order things online far before the holidays is important because of seasonal delays and all sorts of mishaps during online package shipping. 

Have back-up gift ideas  

Sometimes when thinking about what to buy someone we become locked in on an idea or gift for a person but might not always be able to get the gift in time or find it in stores or online. So, having a back-up idea for someone is a good contingency plan to ensure a good holiday gift exchange.  Gifts don’t always have to be physical items, they can be experiences like a trip or a dinner, as long as it comes from the heart the person receiving the gift will be grateful for the effort.