No matter what type of shopper you are– the early bird who has everything wrapped up before Thanksgiving, or the mad-dasher that goes to grab everything the night before, it is easy to lose track of everybody on your gift list. There is the challenge of making sure that nobody gets the same present twice, especially if the same lists are circulated throughout your family. Here are a few tech tools that you can use to organize your holiday gift giving.
Keeping track of what you want to get for somebody, or what you have already purchased for others is challenging, particularly in large families. What good is planning ahead if you forget what you bought and where you hid it last month? How can you really keep your budget in mind when you are just wandering the store shelves aimlessly buying random gifts? If you have an iOS device, you can get the Santa’s Bag app. This gift giving app helps keep track of what everyone wants, how many gifts you have bought for each person, how much money remains in your budget, and even whether or not you have wrapped the gifts yet. You can add recipients as you go, as well as input what they want or what you think they want into a “gifts and ideas” list. You can set a certain budget for each gift recipient, sort out what store you will be buying the gift from, and set the status of wrapped or unwrapped, and add a gift location so that you don’t forget where you hide it!
A great gift giving app for those who do not have iPhones is the Christmas Gift List for Android. This app tracks ideas for what you want to get each person. The Christmas Gift List app also has quick click icons that let you update the status to bought, or from unwrapped to wrapped. Much like Santa’s bag, you can set personal budgets for each recipient- and see how many gifts you still need to buy at a glance. There is additional room for notes about each gift such as how you wrapped it, how large it is, and what color it is. This app is great for keeping you on top of your holiday gift giving.
The apps mentioned above are great for staying on track of your own gifts, but for those who need to coordinate with friends and family to avoid gift overlap, consider using Google Sheets. Google Sheets will help you form a complete gift giving spreadsheet, with each recipient having their own tab. The only downfall of this system is that users will
be able to see when a gift from their list has been crossed off. The best thing about Google Sheets is that it is free and can be accessed from any device that has an internet connection. All you need is a Gmail account, and family members can see who has added what. As soon as an item is purchased, it can be removed from the wish list so that no item is gifted twice. Although Google Sheets was designed to be more of a tool for school or business, it is surprisingly effective for use as a gift giving organizer.
Of course, there are some families that are spreadsheet challenged. For those families, there are several online wish lists that are good for beginners. MyRegistry allows you to add gifts from any online store, as well as sync any existing registries you may have at places like Amazon, Target, Walmart, Macy’s, and more. You can also use the smartphone app to scan bar codes of items that you find in physical stores. After you have compiled your list, you can share it on social media, a custom link, or allow people to search for it using your name. People with whom you have shared your list can update an item to show you when it is purchased. If every member of your family signs up for a MyRegistry account, everybody gets what they want and nobody ends up with three of the same gifts. MyRegistry is probably the most comprehensive tool for organizing your gift giving, but it does not work unless everybody is on board.
No matter how many people are on your holiday shopping list, staying organized can be a challenge. When it comes to gift giving, it is best to stay on top of things and not wait until the last minute, but no matter what your holiday shopping approach is, these tech tools will surely help organize your gift giving.
At the Computer Doctor, we can help you give the best gifts to your loved ones. We have an iMac in the shop, as well as two laptops ready to go– one of which is touchscreen! A newly refurbished computer by a certified and trustworthy technician is the perfect present to give this season.
Call us at 862-7019 or stop by and visit us at 50 Main Rd N in Suite B in Hampden, ME to check out our selection! If you mention this article, you will even receive 15% off!
With a couple days still to go until one of the biggest shopping days of the year, a mixture of leaks and early announcements have revealed the best product deals at some of the biggest retail chains!
DealNews performed a study from Black Friday Season 2014 to help you score the best deals for anything you are looking to buy!
Because of the Blue law in Maine, almost all businesses must be closed on Thanksgiving Day, particularly the big department stores.
This means that the DealNews Editors’ Choices that vote in favor of deals on Thanksgiving Day won’t apply to us Mainers.
As of now, not very many sales have been advertised for Cyber Monday. But as a general rule, Cyber Monday is a tech-holiday for tech-minded people.
Fortunately, Amazon has announced some of its deals for Cyber Monday. The announced deals are primarily Amazon-exclusive products, such as various Kindle models and a year of the Amazon Cloud Drive storage.
The official Amazon Cyber Monday Deals hub has some limited-time offers that are going on right now which is definitely something to check out if you’re hunting for the best deal on a specific product!
A lot of deals on Cyber Monday will already have a certain percentage taken off of the full retail price, but I have found that most websites will also accept additional coupon codes for you to get an even better deal.
Here are some Apple coupon codes to redeem on the Apple store website, while RetailMeNot is my personal favorite website for finding more coupon codes to redeem on nearly any retail website.
To get the best deal for Apple products, try not to purchase them directly from the Apple Store, even if you use a coupon code. Purchasing from a department store will actually save you an average of $36 on any given iPad on any given day– not even including Black Friday or Cyber Monday! The same can be said for other Apple products as well, but this site has presented the savings data for iPads as of April 2015.
There are a few ways you can get the best deal for the Apple product you are looking to buy, and that usually means taking the time to research when and where you need to be to get it! Here is a basic breakdown of Apple deals this coming Friday.
Best Deals for iPads this Black Friday 2015:
iPad Air 2: The 16 GB is $399 at Best Buy and Walmart or $374 at Staples.
The 64 GB is $499 at Best Buy or $449 at Staples.
If either size is bought at Target, you will receive a $150 gift card with the full purchase price.
iPad Air: At Staples, the 16 GB is $319 and the 32 GB is $359.
If either size is bought at Target, you will receive a $100 gift card with the full purchase price.
iPad Mini 4: The 16 GB is $299 at Staples. At Best Buy, the 64 GB is $399 and the 128 GB is $499.
If any size is bought at Target, you will receive a $100 gift card with the full purchase price.
iPad Mini 2: The 16 GB is $239 at Staples or $199 at Walmart. If bought at Target, you will receive an $80 gift card with the full purchase price.
Best Deals for Apple Watches this Black Friday 2015:
Best Buy claims you can save up to $100 on Apple Watches, with the regular price $349-$699.
Target will give you a $100 gift card with any Apple Watch purchase.
Best Deals for iPhones this Black Friday 2015:
At Target, you will receive a $250 gift card with $0 down for an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus installment plan.
Or, for those that are eligible for 2 year contracts with Verizon or Sprint, you get $50 off the 16 GB iPhone 6s or 6s Plus (now $150 and $250 respectively).
At Walmart, you get $100 off any iPhone as well as a $100 Black Friday Gift Card.
Apple Macbook and iMac deals are a bit harder to come by. Best Buy’s Black Friday ad claims you can save $200 on a brand-new Macbook Pro or an iMac, making them $900 each. However, to get an even better deal on an iMac, stop by the Computer Doctor at 50 Main Rd N in Hampden to check out our $650 21-inch iMac.
Our technician refurbished iMac in the store has similar specifications to the advertised Best Buy one– with 1 huge exception: our iMac has a blazing fast Solid State Hard Drive. In addition to the obvious computer speed difference, our iMac will also have a full 6-month warranty following the purchase and you can expect nothing but the best technical support from the Computer Doctor for the entire computer’s lifetime.
Call us at 862-7019 or stop by our store to get the best deal on computers this holiday season. Even receive 25% off any purchase if you mention this article before December 25!
This is an old post from the Computer Doctor of Maine, discussing the release of the first Apple iPad. Since then, iPads have become more and more advanced. You c...
internet connection. All you need is a Gmail account, and family members can see who has added what. As soon as an item is purchased, it can be removed from the wish list so that no item is gifted twice. Although Google Sheets was designed to be more of a tool for school or business, it is surprisingly effective for use as a gift giving organizer.
your list can update an item to show you when it is purchased. If every member of your family signs up for a MyRegistry account, everybody gets what they want and nobody ends up with three of the same gifts. MyRegistry is probably the most comprehensive tool for organizing your gift giving, but it does not work unless everybody is on board.
