Holiday Shopping Hacks That’ll Save You Hundreds (or Thousands) This Season

Holiday Shopping Hacks That’ll Save You Hundreds (or Thousands) This Season

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The 2023 holiday shopping season is here, and you know what that means…gifts, trips, and LOTS of spending. If you love the holiday season but are more into frugal festivities, we have just the episode for you. Whether you’re a budget-conscious stocking stuffer or a buy-everyone-an-iPhone gift giver, we’ve got some simple tips that’ll help you save hundreds or thousands this holiday season.

To help us build out our list of holiday hacks, we brought on Chris Hutchins from the All the Hacks podcast to give us his best tips for staying on budget this holiday season. From saving hundreds of dollars per person per flight to crazy cash-back browser extensions, how to buy fewer gifts while making everyone happy, and the best board game ever, Chris shares his favorite ways to spend less during the season and his listeners’ favorite frugal gifts.

Even if you’re not much of a holly, jolly, merry type of person, Chris drops some incredible cost-saving knowledge YOU can use at ANY time of the year to keep thousands of more dollars in your pocket!

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Read the Transcript Here

Mindy:
Hello everybody. Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, where we interview Chris Hutchins from All The Hacks and talk about all the finance hacks for the holiday season. Hello, hello, hello, my name is Mindy Jensen and with me as always is my stuffed after Thanksgiving dinner co-host, Scott Trench.

Scott:
Thanks Mindy. It’s great to be here and feast on life hacks, tips and tricks for the holidays with Chris Hutchins today.

Mindy:
Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you are starting.

Scott:
That’s right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate, start your own business or simply save a tremendous amount of money by thinking through your strategy, tactics and tricks for holiday shopping and travel. We’ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards your dreams.

Mindy:
All right, Scott, it’s time for that segment of the show called The Money Moment where we share a money hack, tip or trick to help you on your financial journey. And today’s Money Moment is drink more tap water. Did you know that the average water bottle is a $1.29? If you use this as your major source of water, it adds up fast. Bring a reusable water bottle if you can, and if you’re concerned about water quality, put a filter in your fridge or on your sink. Over time it will save you more money and will be better for the environment.
Do you have a money tip for us? Email [email protected]. Chris Hutchins is the award-winning host of the podcast, All The Hacks. You may remember him from episode 355 and also because we just reran that episode last Friday after Thanksgiving. It was so popular, we knew we had to run it again. Chris, welcome back to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. I am so excited to talk to you and hear about all of your holiday hacks.

Chris:
Thank you for having me again. It’s always fun every time we have a conversation.

Mindy:
It’s always fun every time we have a conversation. But Chris, for those of us who haven’t had as many conversations with you as I have, can you remind our listeners who you are and tell us a little bit about your podcast, All The Hacks?

Chris:
Yes, I am one of those crazy optimizers that built a spreadsheet for everything. Now it’s actually mostly a notion where I just collect all the information with the quest that I have to upgrade and optimize my entire life. I do that and publish it and share it with the world at All The Hacks, which is my podcast and newsletter. And my goal is just to help you live more optimal lives and spend less and save more.

Mindy:
Awesome. Well today we’re going to be talking about all the holiday hacks, but before we do, Chris, let’s set the tone. What does your family do for the holidays?

Chris:
Gosh, we’ve gone through a lot of evolutions here. So we started with my wife and I, we would just alternate families, one family, next family, one family, next family. And my family, I was always pushing us to go on a trip for the holidays and her family, I think there’s more siblings and siblings with kids sooner, that it’s always kind of get together. Almost always in Colorado where her family’s from and it’s a big family ordeal. So it seems like every year it’s either Colorado with family or push to take a trip with my family.

Scott:
All right, so how do you manage this? What are some hacks you can use to get your family out to Colorado cheaply, effectively, safely?

Chris:
So I think the biggest holiday travel hack, it’s to be flexible. And I know this sounds so ridiculous, everyone says this, but definitely looking at dates and times to create flexibility. I also think that airports can change the price a lot. And so in the mountains in Colorado, as you know, maybe you don’t want to pick an airport that’s three hours away and get stuck, but there are a lot of other places in the country where if you were flying to…
I used to fly to DC all the time and it was so expensive and some years it was like half the price to fly to Baltimore, which is a 40-minute drive instead of a 10-minute drive. But if you could save a thousand dollars for a family to fly an extra 30 minutes out of the way, whether you’re renting a car, asking family to pick you up, I think it can be a worthwhile alternative. So when you go to Google flights, it’s really easy to go and search from multiple airports.
And so I think for a lot of trips, especially if it’s a work trip and it’s just you, you would never consider driving an hour out of the way, but if you were going on a week long trip over the holidays with four people where your total flights could be $2000 or $7,000 for everyone. All of a sudden you’re like, “Well, maybe I drive an hour and a half.” And sometimes, those hour and a half drive might end you up at an airport where parking is even cheaper and it could end up actually saving you even more.
So I would say definitely look at other airports because sometimes there could be great deals that way. The big other thing you can do, and this is true for dollars or points, is nowadays post pandemic most flights have become flexible to the point that you can cancel them and get credit without having to pay any fees. And if you use points, a lot of times it’s cancel, get your points back with no fees. So we recently had a trip planned to go to Mexico. The flights were on Alaska and one of the flights changed.
And anytime a flight changes, this is your best… You should be so excited if your flight changes by an hour and it’s amazing. So just sit on it even if the change is fine, make sure when you log in, never click that button. It’s like, “I accept the change.” Because what happens is if anytime your flight changes depending on the airline by an hour or more, you can usually change your flight, cancel your flight or anything for free.
And we called Alaska and we said, “Hey Alaska, yeah, that one hour time changes isn’t going to work. Can you cancel our flights?” They canceled them, no credit, full refund. Saved 150 bucks per person for four people, which was awesome.

Mindy:
So what are some common ways we can all save during the holidays? Let’s start with the holiday season. How do we make our dollars go further during shopping? Should we be looking for coupons? Do we set price alerts to monitor gifts like you set price alerts for your travel?

Chris:
So I’m going to back up because I found that the holidays for me got to this point where it just felt like it wasn’t about the holidays. So I remember a moment where I got an email and it was like, “Hey, we haven’t gotten your Christmas list yet, can you go send it?” And I was like, “Okay.” I really don’t like Christmas list personally because I feel like it’s just me sending you a list of the stuff I want to buy. And if now I’ve got to wait a month to get it and if I wanted it and I really needed it, I would’ve bought it.
And if I don’t need it, I don’t really want to waste money on it. And so the proposals I had started with were a total flop and they were a bit extreme to make a point, but my extreme proposals were like, “Well, if this is how it works and everyone just comes up with a budget, what if we all just write our budgets in a spreadsheet and we net out how much we each want to spend on each other? And then if I want to spend 120 on you and you want to spend 99 on me, then I’ll just Venmo you $21.”
Everyone’s like, “Well that’s horrible, horrible.” Of course it’s horrible. I’m trying to make a point here. So we’ve done a few things. In some families we’ve said, let’s just eliminate sibling gifts. We all have enough things, let’s do that. Or each person can pick a charity and we can all just donate to that charity or something like that. If you want to keep the spirit alive, you’ve got kids. You don’t want to have no one opening gifts even the adults. We divided my wife’s family up into four. We have three siblings and parents and each one picked one of the others randomly and we got one gift.
So other than gifts for the grandkids and the kids, everyone just got one gift. And so one of my gift guide tips that I thought was a cool gift, we got my sister-in-law and her husband an Ooni pizza oven, which is a cool thing if you like making pizza at home and you don’t have a pizza oven, you can buy this thing and set it up outside. And some of them are wood and some of them are gas and we made pizzas one night. So it was a fun family experience over the holidays, but it was just one gift.
And I feel like the only pressure you have is to pick one gift for one person or one couple. You put a lot of thought into it and you’re not just buying things for the sake of buying things. And so that cut back on all the financial and mental overhead of the holidays and made it about this really special thing, which I think is what I want or what most people want is it’s about expressing your love and appreciation for people. And you could do that without gifts.
But if you want to do gifts, maybe if you limit the number, limit the amount, limit the people who are getting them, it can make it a little bit more back to what I think it’s supposed to be. And so before we get into shopping hacks, I think sometimes the holidays can devolve into, “Well, we’ve got to buy everyone all these gifts.” And I don’t know, a lot of us, I think if we’re frugal and optimal and we manage our own lives well, we don’t have a ton of things we need and it ends up just buying people’s stuff for the purpose of buying them stuff. I don’t know, have you guys felt any of that ever? I’m curious.

Mindy:
Oh my God, you are speaking my language. I do not like Christmas traditionally because it is this obligation to buy somebody something and maybe I’m not close with them or maybe like you, they have everything that they need and they don’t want anything which makes them even more difficult to buy for. And it just turns into this, “Here I got you this thing that kind of reminded me of you because you used to like vanilla candles when we were in second grade or whatever.”
It’s an obligation. I love the story about the pizza oven where not only do you gift it, but then you get to use it right away. And it’s this experience gift. It’s not just, “Here’s the thing, thanks for being in my life.” It takes a lot of the joy out of it. My husband and I together have advocated for years on both sides. Let’s not do gifts anymore. Let’s just get together. And we are literally the only ones on either side of the family that doesn’t want to do gifts.

Scott:
We do kind of a white elephant or, I’m sorry, Secret Santa on one side of the family and white elephant on the other side of the family, traditionally. So that helps with that. Baby’s first Christmas was last year. She was much more interested in the box than whatever we ended up getting her. So I think that’ll be the same this year, but next year I think that that’ll be particularly fun to do a lot of those.
But I think it can be really stressful when you have to pick out seven different gifts for seven different people. And these two people won’t care very much. This person will care very greatly about what gift you get them. It can add stress to the holiday instead of making it a wonderful experience sometimes.

Mindy:
That’s the other point is that some people on your list are going to be highly offended if you don’t get the perfect gift while simultaneously not giving you any clues at all.

Chris:
But that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to give gifts. There are a lot of people listening who are like, “I’m going to give gifts.” If I’m buying something, I’ve got a whole checklist to make sure that we’re getting the best deal. So let’s assume that even though there are ways to make Christmas about what it’s about or make the holidays, whatever holiday you celebrate, what it’s about, there are still ways to save money when you’re doing it.
So let me share how I think about buying gifts, at least when they cost an amount that it’s worth this time, right? If you’re buying someone something that’s $8, I wouldn’t go through this process, but anytime I’m looking to buy something, I’m looking at a handful of things. So first, where’s the best price? I think a lot of us just assume Amazon’s always the cheapest, but if you plan the holidays in advance, you don’t need to get your gifts in two days or one day from Amazon Prime.
And Amazon’s not always the best price. So I would say Google Shopping is pretty good at this, showing you a bunch of other retailers online that will sell a thing. Obviously, keep in mind the return policies and if that matters to the type of gift you’re buying. One is finding the best price, then I’m not just looking at the best price, but it’s what if I can stack on cash back? Sites like Cashback Monitor, let you go out and say, what retailer do I get the most cashback for?
So you might think, “Oh, the cheapest place to get this is at Best Buy but it turns out if I buy it somewhere else, I get 10% cashback. Well, maybe it’s actually cheaper there.” So I’m always checking the cashback sites to make sure that I’m earning a little bit of extra back. And by the way, fun hack, if you play the Points of Miles game, you can take your Rakuten cash back and say, “Don’t pay me cash back, but pay me Amex points.” Which if you play the Points of Miles game, you should be able to get more than a cent of value from Amex points.
And so a hundred percent of my Rakuten cashback gets shoveled into my Amex points balance.

Mindy:
What is this cashback website that you’re talking about? Because I’ve never heard of this Before.

Chris:
If anyone’s ever used Rakuten, it’s like you go to Rakuten and they have all these retailers that are like, “Oh, if you buy from Nike today, you get 10% cash back.” And so you either click the link on the website or you install the browser extension. And when you’re browsing, sometimes it’ll even pop up and say, “Hey, on this site you get 10% cash back.” You click the link, it refreshes the page, and now 10% of that purchase you get back. So that’s the general principle.
However, if you just commit to only use Rakuten, yes, it’s a little simpler and not complicated, and mostly that’s what I’m doing. But if I’m making a big purchase and I could buy it at the same price from 10 different retailers, I go to a site called Cashback Monitor where you can basically look and see what is the best place to get cash back for certain types of purchases, or where do I even credit it? So let’s take for example, I’m at Cashback Monitor right now.
And I’m saying, “I’m going to go to Target.” Well, actually let’s use something that’s a little bit more obscure that you might be buying from. Let’s say Chewy, which is a place that you can buy dog food and that kind of stuff. And it’s like, well, if you go to Rakuten, you’re not even going to get any cash back. I don’t even see them on this list. But if you go to TopCashback, you’re going to get 4%. And if you go to the American Advantage Shopping portal, you get one mile per dollar.
And if you go to the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal, you’ll get two points per dollar. And so for different retailers, the best place to funnel your cash back might be something else. So I always like to check if you’re about to spend a lot of money, where can you get the most cash back? So to rapid fire, I’m going to buy something online. Yes, I’m going to get the most cash back. Yes, I’m going to find the place with the best price. Yes, I’m going to use the card that gives me the most points so that I earn that also.
Because all these things stack, you can stack earning points on your card, earning cashback on a site like Rakuten or another one you find on Cashback Monitor. Yes, I’m going to see if there’s a coupon. There’s a bunch of browser extensions to find coupon codes. If you can’t find one, just live chat the site and be like, “Hey, are there any offers?” And sometimes they’ll say, “Oh, we have a 10% off coupon, let me apply it to your cart.” Which has happened to me.
Or, “Oh, someone once told me we don’t have any discount codes, but if you just search on Twitter, you’ll probably find people sharing our referral codes, which give you 20% off.” And I was like, “Oh, I didn’t think about that. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t think about that given what I do for a living.” But so I’m just going to stack all these. And on the rare occasion there are comp sites. The ones I know most are Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Crate & Barrel, where you can get all these coupons when you change your address or when you attend a webinar or something.
And people that don’t want to go through the process of this, sell them online. So there was this website, I’m going to check if it still exists, called SaveN, the letter n, deals.com. I have no affiliation with this site at all, and I don’t even know if it’s still around, but if it is. And you can go buy a $10 off or 20% off Lowe’s coupon, and they’re usually not that expensive. So 15% off coupon for Home Depot is, well, this one’s $24, so that’s more than I thought. But you could buy these coupons.
So if you’re going to go buy patio furniture like we were, and you’re going to spend hundreds of dollars and you can go buy a coupon that’ll save you 10% for a few bucks, might be worth it. And so my goal is relative to how much you’re spending, put in the effort to see how many kind of deals and discounts you can stack. And if you do it right, you bought it at the cheaper place, you got the cash back, you used the best credit card to earn the most points.
And you went ahead and found a coupon to get the best price within that store.

Scott:
What percentage total savings is this on average for you?

Chris:
I would say at most you’ll probably get, let’s say 30 to 40% off. And on average it might be, let’s call it five to 10.

Scott:
This is very serious dollars here, especially if you’re spending a lot of money on travel, on a big repair project. These are real estate tips, right? You’re doing a big remodel. These are huge potential savings.

Chris:
This is where we did it. The biggest one was we bought a Toto Japanese toilet seat from Lowe’s and it was cash back plus bought the Lowe’s gift cards on Amazon because we have an Amazon credit card that gets 5% off Amazon. And all the credit cards we had that we could use at Lowe’s were at most two points. So we bought all our Lowe’s gift cards on Amazon to get 5% off. We used a coupon that we bought to get a 15% off, and then we found a cashback thing for I think at the time, three or 4% off.
So stacked it all together, I think we saved 25-ish percent, including cash back off a much more expensive toilet than the average person would buy. But it was the one luxury we wanted in our bathroom remodel.

Mindy:
You brought up gift cards, and that is where I wanted to go next because there’s a lot of us that are shipping gifts when we’re not going to that side of the family for the year or I just don’t know what to get you and a gift card gets everybody. Are there any hacks for purchasing gift cards either for you to use or to gift? And can you double dip those with credit card point?

Chris:
You can. The hack there would be, you could go to… Let’s say you have a Amex Gold card, which gives four points on groceries. I can’t remember which Chase card gets 5x on office supply stores or the Wyndham Business Earner card gets eight points per dollar on gas stations. And I said, Amazon gives you 5% back on Amazon. All of those cards work at places that sell gift cards.
So I wouldn’t necessarily buy the gift card on the website of the company as much as I would go to the grocery store and buy the gift card for four points per dollar with my Gold Amex or to the office supply store with a card that gives 5% back at office supply stores. So if I’m going to buy a gift card, I’m going to find a place that sells that gift card at a retailer that I get more cash back on. A lot of the coupons don’t work.
So if you’re going online buying a coupon, you’re not going to get 10% off buying a gift card with a coupon. So that’s not really an option.

Scott:
Well, let’s keep going with more of these rapid fire tips. Is there more?

Chris:
I guess a couple of things. So one, depending on the family member, I would say definitely consider whether it’s worth looking into used gifts. And I know this sounds maybe not that classy or not that great, but I am going to push back a little bit. So I needed to buy a new camera. And so I wanted this particular camera for… I have a little studio back here. We did a couple in-person interviews. It was like $700 at Best Buy or anywhere you buy it online plus tax. And it ended up being about $800.
And I was looking on Facebook marketplace and there was someone that had the camera, in box, didn’t want to pay the restocking fee and was selling it for 600 bucks. So saved about 200 bucks on a camera. And did it come with the gift receipt? No. Was it completely unopened and never used? No. But maybe the savings you would get for buying a gift like that for someone lets you give them a gift that is far better than the gift they would’ve gotten. And so if I had gotten that same camera but not with the box and maybe a couple of years old, maybe it would’ve been 400 bucks.
So if you were looking to get someone a gift, I would say know your audience, but there are a lot of savings to be had buying things secondhand, that being secondhand doesn’t really matter. Like a new bicycle for your kids. Our daughter has a woom bike, which are these very expensive children’s bicycles, but way less expensive if you buy them online. In fact, I think I found a deal so good that we bought the next one. So one that she’s not going to need for a year or two is sitting in our basement.
Thank goodness she doesn’t listen to this podcast, but we already have her gift for Christmas 2024 or birthday 2024, 2025 because we found such a good deal on it and it’s in great shape. Does it come in the box? Does she get to put it together? No. Does she care? No. She’s excited to get a bicycle. So if you plan in advance and you’re not scrambling at the last minute and you’re thinking about this throughout the year. And this is a great example because these bikes have sequences.
They’re like the woom two, the woom three, the woom four. If you know you’re going to want to get one of these in the next 12 months, just keep an eye on it, see a good deal, scoop it up. There’s an extension for the browser called Keepa, which will show you how is the price trended on Amazon. So sometimes you’ll be like, “Wow, this thing’s always $20 and right now it’s $30, maybe I should wait a little bit. Or it’s always $50 and right now it’s 30, I should buy it.” And so again, I think planning ahead is a great way to save on all of this, both on flights, travel gifts.
I don’t know, maybe it could be cool to share a few, any other ideas people have, whether they’re gifts or experiences. I’m going to be writing and emailing out probably before this goes live a All The Hacks gift guide. I did one last year. There’s probably 20 or 30 things on it that throughout the year I’ve thought, “Wow, this makes a great gift. Wow, this is really cool experience.” I’m going to put it at allthehacks.com/giftguide because I haven’t put it there yet, but that URL will redirect.
But to the extent either of you have ideas here, I’m curious if there are a few things around the house or that you’ve bought or used or loved, could be clothes, could be gadgets, could be practical things that you’d be like, “Wow, this makes a great gift.”

Mindy:
My mother-in-Law is a really great gift giver and she got me a knife that I never would’ve bought myself. I swear it never needs sharpening, but it does actually need sharpening. It’s an amazing knife and it stays sharp forever. And then when it starts to get a little bit dull, I give it a couple of swipes on my Samurai Shark knife sharpener, and then it’s really, really sharp. It’s the best knife I have ever used in my whole life.
I love to cook. And I opened it up and I was like, “Oh, it’s a knife.” And then I started cutting it. I’m like, “Oh, it’s really a knife. I better tuck my fingers back so I don’t cut off my fingertips.” And it was such a great gift for somebody who cooks. It was fantastic. It was probably really expensive and I never even asked how much it was. And pajama pants because I’m always cold.

Chris:
My gift is Vuori joggers, which are not pajama pants, but the most comfortable, soft joggers in various styles that we’ve given lots of times for the holidays. But I’ve got a few others because I am writing this gift guide. I have some thoughts, so I’m going to share a few more while Scott comes up with a few. I’m going to inspire you. So the number one clicked gift in the email I did last year for the gift guide was a Coravin, which is a wine tool where you can basically take a wine bottle and it sticks a needle through the cork.
Lets you pour out a glass or two of wine and then takes it off and the cork reseals and it replaces as you’re pouring. I think it’s argon gas in the bottle. So basically, let’s say you don’t want to drink an entire bottle, you got a nice bottle of wine, you want to have a glass or two. You don’t need to open it. And so you could pour out two glasses and then six months later pour out two more glasses and it’s a few hundred dollars. So it’s definitely not a cheap gift to throw in a stocking, but it was the number one pick, not the number one pick, but at least from link click data.
It was the thing more people clicked on in the last one. On the less expensive side, a lot of people enjoyed… I sent a link to this company, Whiskey River Soap, which makes candles, but they have slightly inappropriate and funny sayings on the candles. So I will send people to their website. They are great, funny gifts. And there’s probably a candle that expresses that feeling that someone in your family has.

Scott:
People love their pets. If you can get a picture of their pet, there’s this site, I forget what it’s called. You can put the pet’s picture in a fancy suit or in a historical regalia or whatever, and it’s just hilarious. And they get a huge painting of their pet that they then have to figure out where they’re going to put in the house.

Chris:
Plus one to Scott’s suggestion. One of our favorite family board games is Coup. I don’t know if anyone’s ever played this game. It’s up to six people. If you’ve ever played Mafia or Werewolf in a large group, it’s kind of a… I don’t even know how to explain it, but it’s a little bit of bluffing. But because it’s quick and fun, we were bringing this card game, we went on a family trip to the beach and we just brought the card game.
It’s like, “Oh, waiting for our table at dinner, playing Coup. Sitting on the beach, playing Coup. Sitting in the lobby waiting for someone to come down, playing Coup.”

Scott:
I’ll give you one more here. We have a game that we play as a family called One Night Ultimate Werewolf, which is just very fun. It’s kind of like one person’s the bad guy and you got to figure out who they are, and everyone has to deceive each other with it.

Chris:
If you like One Night Ultimate Werewolf, you’ll love Coup. They’re in the same family of bluffing and deception. It doesn’t work well if you have a very sensitive family because you’re calling each other out all the time. But if you can get over that, I think it’s great.

Scott:
Those are fun. I’m going to pick that one up this year for the holidays. That’s great. $13 on Amazon, but I’m going to beat that price as a personal challenge with your suggestion.

Chris:
I don’t know if 13 is worth your time yet. Wait for the big ticket. If you’re going to buy the Coravin, maybe shop around and see if you could save some money.

Scott:
Well, Chris, this has been really informative. Thank you so much for coming back on the show and sharing a lot of these tips. There’s a worldview that goes into the way you approach this kind of stuff, which is already maximizing for happiness, and it comes with a lower price tag in a general sense, and then a really great tactical approach to optimizing at each stage when you do have to spend money. So I think it’s really admirable.
It’s probably saving a lot of people a lot of time and money and helping them be happier in the process and really appreciate you coming on and sharing your energy and wisdom with us today on the show.

Chris:
Thanks for having me. And I would just encourage everyone find a way to make the holidays about what you really want it to be about. Take five minutes before you even think about saving money, spending money or anything, and say, “What do we want to get out of this holiday season?” And if it’s more time with family, propose that that be the focus of it. If it’s giving back, make that be the focus of it.
If it’s both, then go volunteer with your family and make it about spending time with your family and giving back. So I would say think about what you want the holidays to be before you jump into the tactics of ways to save money on it and everything else.

Mindy:
Chris, I love that. I take more notes when you’re on the show than when anybody else is on the show.

Chris:
Well, thank you for having me and thank you everybody for joining us.

Mindy:
Thank you, Chris. And where can people find you when they’re done with you on our show?

Chris:
All The Hacks is the podcast. You can search for that wherever you are. And since we’re talking about the holidays, I’ll go put the gift guide up at allthehacks.com/giftguide by the time this episode airs.

Mindy:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Chris, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Chris:
Thanks for having me.

Mindy:
Holy cats, Scott, I’m not kidding. Whenever Chris is on this show, I am taking note after note after note. That was a super fun episode.

Scott:
I mean, he’s just a wealth of knowledge on this stuff. You can tell he treats it like a sport or a passion here to go and find all of these little intricacies in ways to make more money, save more money, or reframe certain situations to ways that are more fun and cheaper and more cost-effective. So really admire his passion and energy for this. And my wheels are spinning and turning after that conversation. I got a lot to think through about this holiday season and how to maximize the stuff that he told us.

Mindy:
Yes, that is a lot of information that we just got from Chris. I think you said it best, Scott. He treats it like a sport and he’s very competitive. He is going to win. So we always love when Chris has some fabulous suggestions for us. I want to hear from you, our dear listener. At the end of this episode, Chris was asking us about really great gifts. I want to hear what your really great gifts are. What’s your go-to gift for people when you are giving gifts, or what is a really great gift that you have gotten?
So please share with us either email [email protected], [email protected], or go to our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/bpmoney and share in the question that I will post at the top of the group this morning, the day that this episode comes out. All right, Scott, we get out of here.

Scott:
Let’s do it.

Mindy:
That wraps up this fantastic holiday hacks episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. He is Scott Trench and I am Mindy Jensen saying, don’t be a stranger ranger.

Scott:
If you enjoyed today’s episode, please give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you’re looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at youtube.com/biggerpocketsmoney.

Mindy:
BiggerPockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kaylin Bennett. Editing by Exodus Media. Copywriting by Nate Weintraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the BiggerPockets team for making this show possible.

Watch the Episode Here

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In This Episode We Cover

  • How to save hundreds of dollars on your holiday flights with this one timing hack
  • Why fewer gifts can lead to happier holidays (and how to convince your family of it)
  • Crazy cash-back opportunities and sites that’ll reward you for gift-giving
  • How to save 30%-40% on home renovations and repairs using this one coupon website
  • The gifts you can and should buy used (NO ONE will notice)
  • Chris’ 2023 holiday gift guide for the frugal gift giver
  • And So Much More!

Links from the Show

Connect with Chris

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Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.

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