When to Buy Christmas Gifts: A Week-by-Week Plan

Christmas shopping fails on two axes: paying too much, and not being able to get the thing at all. The calendar that solves both is not obvious, because different categories peak at different times.

This is the schedule we use ourselves, based on two years of tracking when prices bottom out and when stock runs dry.

October

Buy books, board games and anything personalised. Personalised orders take two to three weeks in the peak, and books rarely get discounted much, so there is nothing to wait for.

Early November

Write the list and price-check it. Note the September price for anything over a hundred dollars, so you can tell a real discount from a manufactured one.

Late November

Buy the big items: appliances, toys, bedding, ride-ons. This is the deepest discount week of the year in those categories, and the stock is at its best.

First week of December

Final call for anything personalised or engraved. After this point, delivery dates become unreliable and you will pay for express shipping.

10-14 December

The second-chance window. Slower-moving stock is discounted again, often to Black Friday levels. Good for filler gifts, not for the main present.

The bottom line

Books and personalised gifts in October, big items in late November, and everything else before the tenth of December. That is the whole plan.