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The holiday season means time with family and new memories, but it can also mean lots of spendingsometimes too much. From gifts to travel plans to grocery shopping, costs can pile up and become overwhelming, especially in a difficult economic environment. Holiday shopping can bring joy, but its important to stick to a budget and avoid going into debt, said shopping expert Trae Bodge. Im really emphasizing that shoppers look for ways to save as much as possible this season. So we dont bring that debt into the next year, Bodge added. Here are some expert recommendations to make the most out of your budget this holiday season: Plan your gift list and shop around Planning your gifts as far in advance as possible can be a great way to save money, since it gives you more time to compare and shop around, said Kiersti Torok, a social media content creator known on Instagram and TikTok as Torok Coupon Hunter. Torok plans her shopping months in advance. She buys the chocolate and candy for her childrens Christmas stockings right after Halloween, when theyre on sale. And it’s not too early to think about next year her Christmas decorations are always bought on clearance, especially after Christmas. If you wait until two, maybe three, days after Christmas. Things will start to hit 75% off. And thats when I shop for my kids birthdays, because theyre in July, Torok said. Compare prices When youre looking to buy a gift, Bodge recommends comparing prices with other stores, looking for coupons, and signing up for emails from your favorite stores. That way, you can buy the item when its at its lowest price. Im always looking for maybe a coupon code, so I can save a certain percentage off. Or I can earn cash back or get a free shipping offer. I really believe in those tools and use them every single time I shop, Bodge said. To find deals more easily, Bodge recommends installing browser extensions on your computer. Some of her favorites are PayPal Honey and Rakuten. Lately, Bodge has also noticed the increasing use of artificial intelligence to both find holiday gift ideas and sales. However, AI search engines are not very good at finding up-to-date deals, she said. Bodge recommends that you search for deals on the stores website or on sites like RetailMeNot. If you cant find an item on sale, find a coupon, or wait to see if you can find it cheaper somewhere else. Save on groceries by using coupons If you’re the host of your family’s holiday celebration, you might be rushing between going to the grocery store, cooking a large meal and decorating your house. But, it’s best if you don’t let the holiday rush distract you from saving on groceries. Coupons are a great way to reduce costs so you can keep your meals on budget, and possibly use that money for other expenses. Most grocery stores offer coupons, either in paper form, on their website, or in their apps. Couponing can be time-consuming, but the tradeoff can be saving hundreds of dollars on groceries, according to Torok. If youre trying couponing for the first time, she recommends taking small steps. If youre looking to save money and you never couponed before, my biggest advice is to pick your favorite store youre most comfortable with and download their app, Torok said. Once you feel comfortable using coupons with your preferred store, Torok recommends that you start comparing prices with other stores near you. This way you can shop for the best deals and save money. If youre looking to maximize your savings, she also recommends taking advantage of websites that give you cash back on your grocery shopping. Examples include Top Cash Back and Ibotta. Buy in bulk and stock up on groceries When preparing for your big holiday meal, a useful tactic to save is to buy in bulk and then freeze it for when you need it, recommended Alli Powell, grocery shopping expert. Anything that you can stock up on and freeze at a (lower) price point, then take it out of the freezer to use later, itll be such a benefit. This is something I try to do year-round, said Powell, who hosts Grocery Getting Girl, a blog and Instagram page dedicated to budget-friendly grocery shopping. Large grocery stores typically offer sales around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, and this can be a perfect opportunity to buy in bulk and put it away for another time, Powell said. Be careful with store credit cards and buy now, pay later deals Proceed with caution when it comes to acquiring store credits cards or making purchases using buy now, pay later. If youre shopping in person this holiday season, youll likely be offered a store credit card at checkout, often paired with a large discount on your current purchase. Bodge recommends that you only get a store credit card if you know you can pay it off in full each month and have good credit card habits. If theres a retailer that you shop with regularly and you are responsible with your credit cards, opening a credit card can be very beneficial, Bodge said. If you decide to acquire a store credit card, its important that you know how much interest will be charged. Store credit cards, like traditional credit cards, affect your credit score. Similarly, making purchases using buy now, pay later is only recommended when you are sure you can afford to make all the payments on time. Buy now, pay later loans were not previously reported to the three major credit reporting bureaus, but consumers will soon see the them impact their FICO credit scores. When it comes to travel, flexibility pays A common mistake when making travel plans is to not allow yourself much flexibility on your flights, said Kyle Potter, editor of Thrifty Traveler, a travel and flight deal website. To save money on your travel, first book the flights and then the rest of the accommodations, that way you can allow yourself to be as flexible as possible with the dates of your flights. Start with the flights first, becuse that gives you the freedom to shift your travel dates by even just a day. Especially over the holidays, Potter said. Potter recommends that you track prices and set alarms for flights on Google Flights. ___ The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism. Adriana Morga, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
This week, a new fashion boutique quietly opened in SoHo. Much like its neighbors, H&M and American Eagle, the new shop features racks of affordably priced, trendy apparel. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was another fast fashion label, but it’s not: it’s Target. Target has retrofitted its existing SoHo store as a “design-forward concept store,” with a focus on fashion and beauty. The store’s entrance, which features a long hallway drenched in the brand’s iconic red, is full of racks with sparkly skirts and faux-fur jackets for holiday parties. Target has dubbed this area “The Drop” and will feature new, seasonal merchandise that is updated every six to eight weeks. The brand says it will refresh the area with wellness-focused products for New Year’s resolutions in January, and giftable items for Valentine’s Day in February. [Photo: Target] The store offers a glimpse into what Target might be cooking up in its efforts to engineer a much-needed turnaround. This past year was calamitous for Target, capping off several years of decline. It began with a boycott, led by Black consumers, who felt that the retailer had let them down by purporting to support diversity in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, then dropping most of its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts when Trump was elected. Last month, it reported a drop in quarterly sales, after four years of flat revenue. In the company’s earnings call, incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke (who is set to replace Brian Cornell in February) declined to say when Target’s sales were likely to turn positive again. (We reached out to Target for commentary, but it did not make a spokesperson available by the time of publication.) [Photo: Target] As I’ve written before, Target’s struggles don’t stem from a single problem. Stores have become disorganized, checkout lines are long. Groceries are an important way to get customers into stores, but they make up less than a quarter of Target’s overall business (as compared to 60% of Walmart’s). And more broadly, Target’s customer base of well-heeled, urban consumers no longer think of it as “Tar-zhay,” the place to buy elevated, well-designed products at an affordable price. Fiddelke has the difficult task of getting Target out of this position. In August, when he was appointed as the next CEO, he articulated three strategies for cleaning up the mess: improving the in-store experience, incorporating technology to improve efficiency, and turning Target back into a destination for style and design. The new concept store in New York appears to be one effort toward reminding Target that it was once the go-to big box store for a trendy outfit. [Photo: Target] The power of design It makes sense that Fiddelke is looking to design to help steer Target out of this rough patch. After all, design is arguably what enabled Target to become one of the country’s top big box retailers in the early 2000s. But the world has changed over the last two decades, and it’s unclear whether the strategy will allow Target to stand out now. Target first came up with the idea of democratizing great design in 1999, when it launched a multiyear partnership with the architect Michael Graves on a collection of elevated home goods at affordable prices. The sales of the first line weren’t spectacular, but Target was committed to the concept, and over time, sales took off, elevating the retailer’s image. Over the next two decades, Target collaborated with the top fashion designers of the era, from Proenza Schouler to Anna Sui to Missoni. This coincided with a period of steady growth in the 2000s and early 2010s, and led to a loyal customer base. But Target no longer corners the market on democratic design. Many other retailers have taken a page from Target’s successful playbook of partnering with designers. High-low designer collabs are now a fixture of fast fashion brands like H&M, Zara, and Uniqlo. And now, Target’s biggest competitorWalmartis stepping up its game, when it comes to fashion. In 2021, Walmart hired the designer Brandon Maxwell to redesign two of its in-house fashion lines and has been popping up at New York Fashion Week for the last three years to signal that it wants to be a contender in the fashion landscape.
Category:
E-Commerce
Onetime cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison after a $40 billion crash revealed his crypto ecosystem to be a fraud. Victims said the 34-year-old financial technology whiz weaponized their trust to convince them that the investment secretly propped up by cash infusions was safe. Kwon, a Stanford graduate known by some as the cryptocurrency king, apologized after listening as victims one in court and others by telephone described the scams toll: wiping out nest eggs, depleting charities and wrecking lives. One told the judge in a letter that he contemplated suicide after his father lost his retirement money in the scheme. Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said at a daylong sentencing hearing in Manhattan federal court that the governments recommendation of 12 years in prison was unreasonably lenient and that the defenses request for five years was utterly unthinkable and wildly unreasonable. Kwon faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. Your offense caused real people to lose $40 billion in real money, not some paper loss, Engelmayer told Kwon, who sat at the defense table in a yellow jail suit. The judge called it a fraud on an epic, generational scale and said Kwon had an almost mystical hold on investors and caused incalculable human wreckage. More than the combined losses in FTX and OneCoin cases Kwon pleaded guilty in August to fraud charges stemming from the collapse of Terraform Labs, the Singapore-based firm he co-founded in 2018. The loss exceeded the combined losses from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwoods frauds, prosecutors said. Engelmayer estimated there may have been a million victims. Terraform Labs had touted its TerraUSD as a reliable stablecoin a kind of currency typically pegged to stable assets to prevent drastic fluctuations in prices. But prosecutors say it was an illusion backed by outside cash infusions that came crumbling down after it plunged far below its $1 peg. The crash devastated investors in TerraUSD and its floating sister currency, Luna, triggering a cascade of crises that swept through cryptocurrency markets. Kwon tried to rebuild Terraform Labs in Singapore before fleeing to the Balkans on a false passport, prosecutors said. Hes been locked up since his March 2023 arrest in Montenegro. He was credited for 17 months he spent in jail there before being extradited to the U.S. Kwon agreed to forfeit over $19 million as part of his plea deal. His lawyers argued his conduct stemmed not from greed, but hubris and desperation. Engelmayer rejected his request to serve his sentence in his native South Korea, where he also faces prosecution and where his wife and 4-year-old daughter live. I have spent almost every waking moment of the last few years thinking of what I could have done different and what I can do now to make things right, Kwon told Engelmayer. Hearing from victims, he said, was harrowing and reminded me again of the great losses that I have caused. Victims say losses ruined their lives, harmed charities One victim, speaking by telephone, said his wife divorced him, his sons had to skip college, and he had to move back to Croatia to live with his parents after TerraUSDs crash evaporated his familys life savings. Another said he has to live with the guilt of persuading his in-laws and hundreds of nonprofit organizations to invest. Stanislav Trofimchuk said his familys investment plummeted from $190,000 to $13,000 17 years of our life, gone during what he described as two weeks of sheer terror. Chauncey St. John, speaking in court, said some nonprofits he worked with lost more than $2 million and a church group lost about $900,000. He and his wife are saddled with debt and his in-laws have been forced to work well past their planned retirement, he said. Nevertheless, St. John said, he forgives Kwon and I pray to God to have mercy on his soul. A prosecutor read excerpts from some of more than 300 letters submitted by victims, including a person identified only by initials who lost nearly $11,400 while juggling bills and trying to complete college. Kwon had made Terra seem like a safe place to stash savings, the person said. To some that is just a number on a page, but to me it was years of effort, the person wrote. Watching it evaporate, literally overnight, was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. What happened was not an accident. It was not a market event. It was deception, the person added, imploring the judge to consider the human cost of this tragedy. Kwon created an illusion of resilience while covering up systemic failure, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Mortazavi told Engelmayer. This was fraud executed with arrogance, manipulation and total disregard for people. Michael R. Sisak, Associated Press Associated Press reporter Anthony Izaguirre contributed to this report.
Category:
E-Commerce
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