by Maria K.

Created on: December 06, 2006   Last Updated: April 13, 2007

We all know that receiving gifts is supposed to be enjoyable. But giving them? Ugh... It can be frustrating even for something as simple as someone's birthday, when you only have to think about one person. Holiday gift giving is that multiplied by twenty and cubed. Who gets gifts and who gets only cards? What to give? When to give? How to give? What is too little? What is too much? Hee-e-e-eelp!

Okay, deep breaths... My first and foremost advice would be: no malls! ...No Black Friday or Gray Saturday or Sunday or any other day of the week! It's not worth the stress - you are probably subtracting years from your life by going to a mall or a major discount retailer during the holiday season. Shop on line. Yes, it's a little risky, however, on-line shopping has been around for ages, most retailers are aware of the liabilities and have encryptions built into their checkout sequences to protect your personal information. Put it this way: I have been shopping on line for pretty much everything except my groceries for 10 years, I haven't done Christmas shopping in a store in at least 5 years (7 is more like it) and - knock on the wood - I haven't had my identity stolen. Check with your bank - most large banks have the option to dispute unauthorized charges both on your credit AND your debit card. So, you can actually shop with the money you know you have (via your debit card) and not rake up debt.

While we are on the subject of money, the good old change jar is your friend. It doesn't have to be the actual physical jar, if you don't like keeping cash in the house, but find a way to dribble a little bit of spare cash into a "holiday/fun" account. Bank of America has a "Keep the change" program, where your every transaction gets rounded up to the nearest dollar and the change goes into your savings account (the bank will actually match some of it) - look into it. Or you can do what I do: I record all my transactions on the same day I make them and after calculating the balance transfer whatever will round me down to the nearest 5 or the nearest 0 into my savings account (so, if I have $398.47 after recording all my transactions for the day, I'll transfer 3.47 into my savings account, leaving 395 in my checking). It does add up and you can have a nice little stash to give you a shot in the arm during the holiday shopping.

Don't wait till the last moment. Actually, don't even wait till December. We all get scads of catalogs in the mail all the time. Some of them suck and

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