Black Friday and Cyber Monday are a fantastic time to buy gifts for our loved ones! Since most stores offer such great sales, it can be difficult to cap our spending. This can easily put us in a financially tight and stressful place for the holiday season. No one wants that! With my tips, you can score all the items you’re shopping for while sticking to a budget.

-Reframe your mindset around sales

If you want to stay on budget for Black Friday/Cyber Monday, remember, spending money doesn’t save you money even if it’s on sale. Sales have a way of tricking us into thinking we’re saving money. I am one of those people who over rationalizes sales. I’ll think things like “If this blouse is 20% off, I’m saving that 20%” even though I probably wouldn’t buy that expensive blouse in the first place. Unless you are stocking up on items you use regularly, you aren’t saving money.

-Set separate budgets

Black Friday is such a great time to score gifts for our friends and family at a great price, but obviously we want to grab a couple things for ourselves! To stick to a budget, set one total budget for your shopping extravaganza and then divide that into two separate budgets. The first being money you want to spend on yourself and the second being money to spend on gifts for others.

*Example: Let’s say your total budget is $300. Your personal items budget would be $100 and your gift budget would be $200.

-Make a list of who and what you’re shopping for

If you don’t go into sales knowing exactly what you’re shopping for, it’s easy to get swept up into a swarm of spending money on things you don’t actually need. Make a list of who you’re shopping for and gift ideas for what to get them so you can stick to your budget.

-Make a plan of where you’re going to shop

Whether you’re shopping in person or online, make a list of where you’re going to shop so you can choose stores that are within your price point. Even if you’re online shopping, I find it helpful to plan on where I’m shopping so that I’m less likely to be enticed by ads on Instagram showing me great deals on stores I don’t typically shop at.

Stores I’m going to shop online for this Black Friday/Cyber Monday:

-Reformation

-Amazon

-Lulus

-Nordstrom

-GymShark

-Abercrombie and Fitch

-Maybe ASOS (just for accessories though because sometimes their clothing can be ill fitting and made of cheap material)

-Sephora

*I can’t guarantee this item will go on sale, but usually they offer a giant jar of First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair cream for $10. This is a great score because it’s a good cream and it’ll last you a long time. It pills under foundation, but it’s a wonderful night cream or day cream if you aren’t a foundation wearer.

***I’ll be updating you on Insta stories for any good sales I see! You can follow me on Instagram @jilliancecilia to see 🙂

Do you have any secret Black Friday and Cyber Monday tips I don’t know about? 😉