My FAVORITE shopping day of the year. The day that Target marks its Christmas inventory down to 90%. This means WE pay only 10% of the retail cost.

Imagine getting 40 beautiful, high quality Christmas cards for $1.49 – instead of $14.99!

Thick rolls of wrapping paper for $0.34 instead of $3.49.

Bows and ribbons for $0.49 instead of $4.99.

Just thinking about it makes me giddy!! And I'm not typically a shopper!!

And here's the best part of all for me… I've turned my boss and several coworkers onto this very special and awesome shopping day. They don't want to do the shopping themselves, however, they let me do the walking for them! This means I can buy two big shopping carts of Christmas items, get the thrill of shopping, but only pay $20 or $30 (remember this is $200 to $300 worth of stuff!!!!!) for my part of the loot. Last year I finished up with $140 ($1400 – that's FOURTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS) worth of Christmas stuff.

I like to find a Target that is experiencing its first Christmas. They usually over order and typically have a TON of stuff to get rid of. I chart out my path using Google Maps, and I plan to go to at least five Targets.

One thing I like to do is look for Christmas wrapping that isn't specifically Christmas. I can usually find plain gold wrapping paper, or plain white, and last year they had non-Christmas colored rolls. You can use these for wrapping presents throughout the year! Just think of the savings!

It's not only Christmas cards, wrapping and bows, either. Last year we got several 25 foot long heavy duty extension cords marked down to $1.29 from $12.99. They were being sold in the Christmas section, so they were marked down. Pretty much anything in the store with Christmas identification on it will be marked down. Some years they have marked down super packs of batteries, just because they had a little Christmas look to them. Christmas coffees, cookies, candies, anything like that will be marked down. It just about kills me if I have to buy something Christmas related, before the 90% off sale.

Here's the site I watch carefully to see when the sale begins. Try to be there at least 15 minutes before the store opens to get in line. There aren't usually more than ten or so folks waiting, but everyone is quiet, the air is a little tense. But usually once we're in the store, we're all sharing loot we've found, and sharing tips we learned about this thing on sale or that. One year, a lady was shopping that lived in the city closest to me. We happened to mention we lived “out there” and it was so funny because we were sharing things we found marked down (you have to use the Target scanners to find out) and when I was leaving she was near the makeup section, waving excitedly to me because she'd found some makeup kits marked down. Sometimes, if I'm in town, I'll scout out the Targets I plan to shop a day or two before Christmas to see what their inventory looks like. If they are down to hardly anything, I'll scratch them off my list.

Luckily for me, since I'm doing shopping for my employer (both for the company and for my boss personally) I'm able to take the day off. It's typically the 6th or the 7th of January.

Excitedly awaiting the 90% off sale,

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