By Lauren Schwahn | NerdWallet

The unofficial start of the holiday shopping season has arrived. Thanks to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days and other retailers’ “early holiday” sales, shoppers don’t have to wait until Black Friday in November to start deal hunting. But a long shopping season can lead to a lot of spending — and debt.

Nearly 3 in 10 Americans who used credit cards to pay for holiday gifts last year (28%) still haven’t paid off their balances, according to a 2024 Holiday Spending Report from NerdWallet.

Creating a budget, building up your savings and comparing prices are some strategies you can use to avoid spending more than you can afford.

Use earmarked funds

Putting money in a special savings account or envelope just for holiday expenses reduces the risk of going into debt. You’ll have funds ready when it comes time to shop.

“Ideally, people should begin saving for the holidays as early as January,” Los Angeles-based certified financial planner Cynthia Jabr said in an email interview. “If not, then starting now is good, too.”

Holiday spending falls under the “wants” category of the 50/30/20 budget, which allocates 50% of your take-home pay to needs, 30% to wants and 20% to savings and debt repayment.

Setting aside $10, or any amount you choose, each week or day even for a short while can be a huge help.

Make a budget — and a list

Calculate a realistic holiday budget based on your monthly income, shopping fund (if you have one) and how much you expect to spend on other expenses during the holiday shopping period. Then, think about how many people you plan to shop for and set a per-person spending limit.

Make a list of specific gifts to get each person that fall within your limits. Remember to add your name to the list if you think you’ll buy something for yourself. <br><br>Keep track of your spending so you know where you stand. If you spend below your budget on one person, you can roll over the remaining money to someone else. For example, say you set a $50 limit for your nephew and find him a great gift that’s only $30. You could add an extra $20 to your budget for Grandma.

Go in on a group gift

If you feel like your budget won’t stretch very far, you might be considering taking on debt to pay for gifts.

According to the report from NerdWallet, 40% of holiday shoppers say they feel pressure to spend more money on holiday gifts than they’re comfortable spending. But splitting the cost with others could be a better solution.

Pooling resources with family or friends can ease the financial burden on everyone and ensure the recipient still gets a gift.

Resist the pressure to buy everything immediately

The fear of missing out on deals can lead to impulse buying. But as retailers begin to launch limited-time deals, remember that there will be more discounts ahead.

The main purpose of early sale campaigns such as Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days is to get people to buy before the competition gets too intense, says Luc Wathieu, a professor of marketing at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.

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“What the companies are trying to do there is to shortcut the search, be there in front of you before you actually are in shopping mode,” he says.

Wathieu expects Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be the “sweet spots” for finding the best deals. Shoppers tend to be more active and price-conscious around this time, and retailers respond by offering competitive discounts.

Spreading purchases throughout the holiday shopping season can make costs more manageable. Pull up your shopping list before checking out sales and limit your search to those items. But if you wait until later in the season to shop, it’s a good idea to have a few backup items in mind.

“There might be more discounts as you get closer to Christmas, but the selection might not be as great as it is earlier in the season,” says Lauren Beitelspacher, a marketing professor at Babson College.

Understand your payment options

Paying with cash or debit is the best for avoiding holiday debt. With these payment methods, you pay in full with money you already have, which protects you from late fees and interest charges.

While credit cards and buy now, pay later plans from companies such as Afterpay and Klarna conveniently break purchases down into smaller payments, they can also make it easy to spend more than you can afford.

“If using something like Afterpay is the best way for you to provide for your family, that’s going to make you feel good about your family, then I think you could do that,” Beitelspacher says. “But still make sure that when the payment comes, that the money is there to make the payment.”

It’s also wise to avoid using several buy now, pay later plans at the same time. Losing track of how much you owe and when payments are due can lead to late fees and damaged credit. If you’re considering paying with a credit card or a buy now, pay later plan, make sure you fully understand the terms before you make the purchase.

Track down the best prices

Getting the items on your list at a discount can help you stay on or under budget. The prevalence of dynamic pricing, especially with online shopping, can make it difficult to know whether you’re seeing the best price. Use technology to point you in the right direction. Apps and browser tools such as Capital One Shopping or ShopSavvy can help you locate coupons and compare prices across retailers.

As you craft your shopping list, knowing which products are more likely to go on sale can also help you save money.

“Try to buy things that others will want,” Wathieu says. “It’s a little bit bizarre to think that way. But if companies predict that the demand will be hot on something, they also feel that other suppliers will fight for it, and so they will try to put their best foot forward.”

Wathieu and Beitelspacher expect some of the best deals in categories such as toys, games, electronics and kitchen items.

Review retailer return policies

Don’t let an attractive price persuade you to buy something you’re on the fence about. Do a little research first. You could be in a tough spot financially if you change your mind about the purchase later.

“The days of free returns and free shipping on returns are not as prevalent anymore,” Beitelspacher says.

She says that while a lot of retailers offered these incentives during the pandemic to stimulate sales and get through their excess inventory, many no longer do.

“If you’re making that rash decision and you’re telling yourself, ‘Oh, I’m just going to return it if I don’t like it,’ just know that you might not be able to get your money back,” Beitelspacher says.

Before you buy something, investigate the retailer’s return policy, and note whether the item is marked as “final sale.”

Start saving up for next year’s purchases

Planning for the current holiday shopping season is key, but thinking long-term is smart, too. Making room in your monthly budget for next year’s holiday expenses now can keep you debt-free.

To figure out how much you should save, Jabr recommends looking at your previous year’s holiday spending, then asking yourself, “Was it too much, or just enough?”

Digging up online order confirmations and reviewing past credit card statements can help you estimate last year’s total.

If you’re comfortable with the amount you spent, and your financial situation hasn’t drastically changed, make that your target. Here’s what that could look like: If your holiday spending totaled $1,000 last year, aim to save about $83 a month for the next 12 months. Future you will be glad you did.

Lauren Schwahn writes for NerdWallet. Email: lschwahn@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @lauren_schwahn.

The article Holiday Deals Are Here. Don’t Let Debt Follow originally appeared on NerdWallet.

Today is Thursday, Oct. 10, the 284th day of 2024. There are 82 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Oct. 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, accused of accepting bribes, resigned his office and pleaded no contest to one count of federal income tax evasion.

Also on this date:

In 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy was established in Annapolis, Maryland, with an inaugural class of 50 students.

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Today in History: October 5, Steve Jobs dies at 56

In 1911, Chinese revolutionaries launched an uprising that led to the collapse of the Qing (or Manchu) Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.

In 1935, the George Gershwin opera “Porgy and Bess,” featuring an all-Black cast, opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 124 performances.

In 1964, the Summer Olympics began in Tokyo, the first Summer Games to be telecast around the world.

In 1966, the Beach Boys’ single “Good Vibrations,” written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, was released by Capitol Records.

In 2001, a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. jets pounded the Afghan capital of Kabul while President George W. Bush unveiled a list of 22 most-wanted terrorists, including Osama bin Laden.

In 2014, Malala Yousafzai (mah-LAH’-lah YOO’-suhf-zeye), a 17-year-old Pakistani girl, and Kailash Satyarthi (KY’-lash saht-YAHR’-thee), a 60-year-old Indian man, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for risking their lives for the right of children to receive an education and to live free from abuse.

In 2018, Hurricane Michael, the first to strike the U.S. mainland as a Category 5 hurricane in 26 years, made landfall in Florida.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Peter Coyote is 83.
Entertainer Ben Vereen is 78.
Actor Charles Dance is 78.
Author Nora Roberts is 74.
Rock singer David Lee Roth is 70.
Country singer Tanya Tucker is 66.
Actor Julia Sweeney is 65.
Actor Bradley Whitford is 65.
Football Hall of Famer Brett Favre is 55.
Actor/TV host Mario Lopez is 51.
NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 50.
Hockey Hall of Famer Chris Pronger is 50.

Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon was reflective in the moments after her team’s reign as two-time defending WNBA champs came to an end Sunday when the Aces were bounced by the New York Liberty in Game 4 of their semifinal series.

It was a somewhat frustrating year for the Aces, who still had all the talent in the world but failed to find the same gear they possessed in the two prior seasons.

“We had excellent talent,” Hammon told reporters, “and had a good team.”

Just a good team. Not a great one, much less excellent. The Aces simply didn’t equal the sum of their parts.

In comparison, Hammon — unprompted — found the Lynx to be quite the contrary.

“You take a team like Minnesota, and you have good talent,” she said, “but you have an excellent team.”

This is a super team era in the WNBA. Last year’s finals featured Las Vegas and New York — two squads flush with all-stars and high draft picks. Those are the teams with the big names, and they’re the ones who received the bulk of the media coverage and recognition. And rightfully so. They were the ones contending for titles.

Minnesota was not. And the expectation at the beginning of the season was that would continue. At the season’s outset, oddsmakers had the Lynx at about 50-to-1 to win the WNBA title.

Minnesota didn’t appear to have the talent to compete at the highest level. Yes, Napheesa Collier was great. But Las Vegas and New York were stacked with high-end players. Minnesota seemingly had one.

But then the early results suggested Minnesota might be different. The Lynx started 4-1. Then they were 13-3. Then they won the Commissioner’s Cup, beating the Liberty 94-89 in the final.

“You’ve got to talk about us now. You’ve got no choice,’” Lynx coach and general manager Cheryl Reeve said to the media after that win. “We just beat a super team. You know how hard that is to do. Because you guys love your super teams, man. You love your super teams. That’s all you want to talk about is your super teams. And we just beat a super team, so let’s talk about it.”

And yet, the narrative only seemed to shift so much. Even as Minnesota continued to win games, even as the Lynx played the best basketball of any team in the league after the Olympic break. Still, all the conversation around the WNBA semifinals centered on Liberty-Aces.

Minnesota-Connecticut was on the undercard.

That was brought to Collier’s attention during the semifinals, and, frankly, she appreciates the lack of notoriety at this point in the season.

“If you keep underestimating us and we just keep doing what we’re doing. We come in and hit teams in the face, because they have the same mindset,” Collier said. “I think we’ve proved who we are all season, and we have so much belief in ourselves and we know what we’re capable of, and that’s what we’re trying to go out and show every night. So it doesn’t really matter what other teams are saying and believing. It just matters what this core team is feeling, and we know we have something special here.”

They’ve known it since training camp, when they experienced firsthand their willingness to move the ball on offense and grind possessions out on defense. The power to do both came from the want to achieve for one another.

The collective was stronger than the individual pieces.

“We like each other, beginning in training camp we meshed so well, the chemistry was there, and we kept growing it,” Lynx guard Courtney Williams said. “You could just feel the difference and the way we play for one another, our selflessness, everyone just wants to win. At the end of the day, that’s what this team is about.”

Reeve said Minnesota could’ve taken two different approaches when it became clear Las Vegas and New York had “swallowed up the top talent.”

“You can either go, ‘OK, well it’s not going to be our time for a while, we’ll just wait,’” she told reporters. “Or you can say, ‘We’re going to find a different way.’ ”

Minnesota chose the latter, and its path has been one filled with team-first basketball that capitalizes on the individual abilities of each player to make the five-player combination on the court as successful as possible. Now, only the Liberty — the final boss — stand between Minnesota and the top of the mountain.

A similar scenario has played out before on the men’s side. Reeve harked back to the 2004 NBA champion Detroit Pistons, who used a similar recipe to down a Lakers team featuring Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone and Gary Payton in the Finals.

“So there’s more than one way (to win),” Reeve said. “There’s more than one way to do this, and so a super team we are not, but we’re a darn good basketball team.”

Yes, the “not a super team” chip is still on Reeve’s shoulder, as well as those of her players.

“I think the chip been there,” Williams said. “(Pundits) had us ninth at the beginning of the season, so that chip never went away. We block out the noise. We know what we can do, we’ve been knowing what we can do, so we’re just going to keep showing everybody what we can do.”

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