2024 Holiday Gift Guide and Top Ways to Save This Season

00:00:00.000 | If you're planning on doing any shopping for the holidays then I hope this

00:00:03.440 | episode will both give you a ton of inspiration and ideas for gifts as well

00:00:07.880 | as walk you through the three to four major ways I get anywhere from 5 to 25

00:00:12.380 | percent off almost all my shopping. I'm Chris Hutchins and today's gift guide

00:00:16.760 | will include over 80 different ideas for the holiday season across a bunch of

00:00:20.800 | categories from tech to kitchen, clothes, health, games, kids, and learning. And in

00:00:26.000 | addition to sharing how I make sure I'm always saving including discounted

00:00:29.880 | gift cards, cash back, card-length offers, and more, I'm gonna close this out by

00:00:33.920 | sharing a few of our family traditions for the holidays. And if you want to jump

00:00:37.400 | around you'll find timestamps in the show notes to make it easier to do it.

00:00:40.920 | Also please know that none of the items in this gift guide have paid me to be a

00:00:44.640 | part of this list, however some of them are sponsors of the show. But that makes

00:00:48.560 | sense because as I've said before most of my sponsors are here because I

00:00:52.120 | reached out to them after loving their products. And while I often read out the

00:00:56.000 | URL for things on the show there's just too many products so I'm gonna put all

00:01:00.280 | the links to everything including all the discounts I find at allthehacks.com/gifts

00:01:07.040 | And since a few of these links are from sponsors or are my affiliate links to

00:01:10.960 | sites like Amazon I would obviously greatly appreciate it if you want to use

00:01:14.880 | them to support me in the show. Of course if you find a better deal somewhere else

00:01:19.440 | absolutely go there instead. Again all the links are at allthehacks.com/gifts

00:01:24.200 | And if you enjoy this episode please share it with a friend, leave a comment

00:01:27.880 | or review. And if you want to keep upgrading your life money and travel

00:01:31.420 | click follow or subscribe. So I'm gonna start with some tech and personal gift

00:01:35.720 | ideas. First I want to start with a product I use literally every single day

00:01:40.080 | and that's the Moft iPhone wallet. It's a magnetic wallet that sticks on your

00:01:44.320 | iPhone. I carry it almost everywhere I go. It holds about three cards maybe it's

00:01:49.120 | two when you start with it it stretches a little bit. You could put you know a

00:01:52.440 | $20 bill in there also just in case you need cash. I really think this is the

00:01:56.400 | best wallet. It also flips out so it can become a stand so you can balance your

00:02:01.600 | phone if you're watching something or you want to keep it upright on your desk.

00:02:05.000 | Definitely an amazing product. Pretty small could be a stocking stuffer as

00:02:09.160 | well. Other product for your phone is the Anker charging stand. There are so many

00:02:15.280 | different charging stands that you can buy on Amazon, in the Apple Store,

00:02:19.080 | anywhere really and so I'm not saying this is the best one. I really like

00:02:23.160 | Anker's products though and what's great about this one is with the new iOS they

00:02:27.720 | kind of have that clock display which I really like but it also has a charging

00:02:31.920 | case below built into the stand for air pods or an Apple Watch or anything else.

00:02:36.560 | So really love these charging stands. We have one on my desk, we have one on the

00:02:41.200 | sides of our bed and we even put one in the kitchen just so that we could charge

00:02:44.040 | our phone easily and quickly when we're cooking or doing stuff around the house.

00:02:47.880 | Side bonus is if you put one in your kitchen it forces you to keep your phone

00:02:52.640 | charging in a way so you can go be a little bit more present with others

00:02:56.000 | which I also like. I mentioned that it charges your AirPods. I've been using

00:03:01.720 | older gen AirPods for a long time but recently I've been getting to such

00:03:06.040 | little battery life that I upgraded to the AirPod 4 and I really really like

00:03:11.080 | the noise canceling that they added. It's just so noticeable on an airplane or in

00:03:15.120 | a noisy space so I'm really happy with that and the MagSafe case and the

00:03:19.720 | addition of USB C means I now no longer need a lightning cable to charge any of

00:03:24.560 | the devices we have which is also great. I've mentioned multiple times probably

00:03:28.680 | in last year's gift guide that AirTags make a great gift. Also we throw them in

00:03:33.480 | all of our bags whenever we're traveling just to get that little extra peace of

00:03:36.920 | mind that we know where our bags are and if for some reason they got lost we

00:03:41.240 | could kind of help find them which can sometimes just be helpful at an airport

00:03:45.640 | or something like that. In fact I actually had a dream last night that I

00:03:48.480 | had two flights and I checked my bag on the flight I didn't take and for some

00:03:53.340 | reason in that dream maybe it was preparing for this episode I didn't have

00:03:56.840 | AirTags and I was kind of stressed out about it. Okay don't worry this is not

00:03:59.800 | just a giant Apple ad that might be the last Apple product. So next I want to

00:04:03.400 | talk about the Anker. I think it's called the GAN Prime Power Bank. It looks just

00:04:08.760 | like a power brick that you could plug in a USB or a USB C charger but it also

00:04:13.720 | has a 10,000 milliamp hour battery built into it and a high power 30 watt

00:04:19.520 | charging port. This has kind of replaced my need to bring any of the plugs that I

00:04:24.520 | use so I can charge my phone and my computer through it but it also has

00:04:28.320 | enough battery that it gets a handful of charges and can even do a pretty decent

00:04:32.720 | job charging a laptop. Next few are a bit nerdy but I mentioned this on my

00:04:39.440 | Stuff I Use episode that I kind of got really excited about backing things up

00:04:44.560 | locally mostly because I started amassing so much content from this

00:04:49.400 | podcast, from photos I take with a nicer camera, from videos we're making that I

00:04:53.520 | just wanted a place to have a backup that wasn't in the cloud that was a

00:04:56.720 | little bit larger than needing to pay for more than two terabytes of storage.

00:05:00.920 | So I got the Synology disk station DS923 plus. It's basically a network

00:05:07.320 | attached storage drive that you could throw three to four hard drives into and

00:05:12.360 | it will operate as a backup that's on the network but if you want you can sync

00:05:17.120 | different folders to the cloud. If anyone needs something for local backup and

00:05:21.720 | storage this is a great idea. It's really easy to connect to the network attached

00:05:26.200 | to any computer and use as kind of an external hard drive, do regular backups

00:05:30.120 | especially if you have slower internet or someone in your family does and they

00:05:34.520 | can't easily back things up online. Two other fun nerdy gifts are a Raspberry

00:05:40.440 | Pi which for anyone not familiar is basically a really tiny sub $100

00:05:46.160 | computer that you can load all kinds of things onto from home automation to

00:05:51.080 | little servers. So that's something fun for kind of a tinkerer or a tech person.

00:05:56.240 | Next is probably one that a lot of people listening have which is a set of

00:05:59.840 | Sonos speakers or especially if it's not a set the Sonos Move speaker is

00:06:04.680 | waterproof, portable. The Sonos system even though the latest app update for

00:06:09.720 | Sonos is so bad and I wish they would go back, I just think they're the best

00:06:14.120 | speakers that you can have for connecting everything in your house,

00:06:17.280 | doing everything remotely so that you can kind of play music without having to

00:06:21.760 | rely on your phone in case you need to take a phone call. I'm just such a big

00:06:25.160 | fan. In the bedroom, I love the Eight Sleep Pod Cover 4 that we have. It's a

00:06:32.440 | fantastic product. It basically cools and heats your mattress on both sides to

00:06:37.480 | whatever temperature you want. It kind of adjusts that throughout the night. It has

00:06:41.000 | an autopilot feature. Amy and I both have very different perspectives on what

00:06:45.860 | temperature we want the bed and it's just magical, right? If on winter nights

00:06:50.560 | you can go in and dial it up and you can have a warm cozy bed but once you're

00:06:54.200 | asleep it'll drop the temperature so that you actually get a better night

00:06:57.520 | sleep because I guess the science often shows that slightly cooler temperatures

00:07:02.760 | at night help better sleep. There's a great deal for that in the show notes I

00:07:07.320 | believe for everyone. Then I love my Aura Ring. I had this both in fitness and here

00:07:13.400 | but I figured since we're talking about sleep I'll mention it. I got one of the

00:07:16.760 | newer ones that tracks heart rate for workouts so it does a little bit more. My

00:07:21.320 | original first gen that I bought, I looked back in the history, I bought on

00:07:25.240 | PayPal before they even had an e-commerce website. It still worked but

00:07:29.240 | the battery wasn't what it used to be. Earlier this year or maybe late last

00:07:32.760 | year I did an episode with Molly from Sleep is a Skill and she has a whole

00:07:38.360 | store set up so if you want to dial in your sleep I'll put a link in the show

00:07:41.620 | notes and the gift guide to her store which has a ton of different

00:07:45.680 | products to help promote better sleep from different lights to different you

00:07:50.120 | know glasses and eye masks and all kinds of stuff so I'll link to that there's

00:07:53.720 | some really cool stuff in there. The next three I didn't know where to put them so

00:07:56.720 | everything I just mentioned was kind of technology related but these are three

00:08:00.280 | gifts one of which I've given multiple times which is a subscription to Delete

00:08:05.040 | Me. It is not the sexiest gift you can give anyone but I've given it to all of

00:08:10.400 | our parents. Surprise if you're listening it might be a gift for siblings. I just

00:08:15.240 | think with the amount of scamming and phishing and what AI can do to compound

00:08:19.520 | that it's more important now than ever to kind of scrub your data off the

00:08:23.840 | internet so you're just a little bit harder to find and less of a target so

00:08:28.120 | Delete Me will go in and regularly and continuously pull all of your name email

00:08:33.680 | address phone number relative names etc off of the hundreds and hundreds of data

00:08:39.160 | broker websites out there that are just constantly sharing that information so

00:08:43.520 | they've been a longtime partner of the show I reached out to them we were

00:08:46.920 | actually their first podcast sponsor ever and so we've got a great 20% off

00:08:50.600 | discount on the gift guide site. Next is one that I've never actually given but

00:08:56.720 | have received and and my wife has received a few which is just a fun video

00:09:01.320 | from Cameo. You basically can hire a celebrity usually not a list but B

00:09:07.440 | through F list celebrity to go record a one-minute video to send to someone and

00:09:13.280 | depending on the relationship that you have with someone it can be a fun gift

00:09:16.880 | to send someone you just really don't know what to what to send but you know

00:09:20.600 | there's a mutual show or sports team that you guys love. Last there's this

00:09:24.640 | company Funko that makes these kind of plastic kind of action figure style

00:09:28.280 | characters and they actually have a thing called pop yourself where you can

00:09:31.600 | go in and design your own character and so you know you pick skin tone and

00:09:37.160 | whether you want eyelashes and different hairstyles and what color they are and

00:09:41.400 | you can pick the clothes and then you can basically create a character and

00:09:45.440 | give it to someone and so it's not you know 3d printed perfect image of you but

00:09:51.240 | it's just kind of a fun thing that it I was thinking this year about whether

00:09:55.040 | there was someone that would make a good gift for no affiliation to these guys I

00:09:58.560 | just thought it was kind of a cool idea. So that's mostly kind of the personal

00:10:02.080 | tech stuff but a lot of the next category is also technology and that's

00:10:06.000 | food and kitchen stuff and for some reason I feel like maybe it's just that

00:10:10.640 | we love to eat we love to cook there are so many ideas of things that we've asked

00:10:14.520 | for things that we've gifted in the past few years that all fall into this bucket

00:10:18.280 | and so recently a gift we received was an air fryer and you know I'm not gonna

00:10:23.520 | say that the one we got is the only one you should get we got a Kosori 9-in-1

00:10:28.400 | countertop air fryer it is absolutely awesome I am actually really surprised

00:10:33.400 | at how often we use this to cook almost everything from fish to chicken we've

00:10:38.480 | cooked pizzas in it we've cooked french fries great for making quick things like

00:10:43.920 | chicken nuggets for the kids reheating food we use it all the time I might be

00:10:48.800 | late to this game I know a lot of people have an air fryer already but definitely

00:10:52.240 | a cool gift idea and thank you mom and dad because we didn't have one and we

00:10:56.220 | didn't ask for one and there's nothing I love more than getting gifts that I

00:10:59.200 | didn't ask for another one that I've now gifted a handful of times is a ninja

00:11:04.320 | creamy which is a kind of frozen ice cream sorbet milkshake maker but the

00:11:10.240 | thing that I love about it most is you can make just an incredible protein ice

00:11:14.560 | cream so I'll link to both the product and the recipe for that protein ice

00:11:17.960 | cream but the ice cream it makes is just so so good and you can make it with no

00:11:23.800 | sugar added and it just tastes like ice cream even though there's no sugar it's

00:11:29.640 | it's mind-blowing so really big fan of the ninja creamy also for the kids it

00:11:34.480 | makes amazing sorbet so you can mash up a bunch of bananas freeze it and it'll

00:11:38.440 | just blend it into this banana ice cream where the only ingredient is ice cream

00:11:43.240 | and it's delicious we've done it with strawberries and other fruit as well so

00:11:46.600 | love the ninja creamy shout out to I believe it was Sahil bloom who's been on

00:11:51.440 | the podcast for first turning me on to this next is almost anything that Breville

00:11:56.880 | makes I can't speak to every product they have because we haven't used all of

00:12:02.040 | them but we do have the tea maker and the immersion blender I think we have

00:12:07.480 | another blender and I just think if you're trying to buy a kitchen product

00:12:10.960 | we've just been really happy with the Breville products big fans there I also

00:12:15.560 | think that something that we use all the time and I mentioned this in stuff I use

00:12:19.840 | and I got some feedback so I'll clarify here is a Belgian waffle maker and one

00:12:24.360 | of those like double Belgian waffle makers that you spin over and back

00:12:27.200 | someone emailed me and said hey the the one you recommended is $400 like is it

00:12:32.480 | really that good and my answer is no no it's really not that good I went back

00:12:36.680 | and looked and it was only $75 when we bought it so I absolutely wouldn't get

00:12:41.120 | the one I got but I'm surprised at how often we use a double Belgian waffle

00:12:45.360 | maker in our house to make Belgian waffles and a lot of time we use Kodiak

00:12:49.960 | cake add eggs and milk to make kind of high-protein Belgian waffles and they're

00:12:55.120 | just a staple and kind of a weekend morning thing for us almost every week

00:13:00.800 | one other thing we've been making a lot of is smash burgers in fact we were at a

00:13:06.640 | burger place the other day and my wife didn't get a burger even though she

00:13:09.560 | loves them and I was like why not and she's like honestly I just want smash

00:13:13.000 | burgers I don't want these gourmet burgers and so this year we had kind of

00:13:17.320 | a burger party for 4th of July and I bought this Cuisinart kit there are a

00:13:22.280 | lot of different ones but it basically comes with like a cast-iron press a

00:13:26.520 | bunch of sheets of I guess parchment paper that you can use so nothing gets

00:13:31.360 | stuck to it and a shaker that you know buy you whatever your favorite seasoning

00:13:35.480 | is for a smash burger and and a big strong spatula and wow we make smash

00:13:40.720 | burgers all the time get a little brioche bun toast it really really big

00:13:45.880 | fan another thing we make a lot is homemade pizza the Ooni pizza oven is

00:13:50.140 | something that we actually gave to a family member during the holidays a few

00:13:54.240 | years back and they've gotten so much use out of it so if you like a fresh

00:13:57.640 | homemade pizza there's just nothing as good as a homemade pizza in a pizza oven

00:14:02.400 | and the Ooni pizza oven is such a great way to do it fun one that I've mentioned

00:14:06.720 | in the past is the - rapid egg cooker just a really kind of like a silly gag

00:14:11.920 | gift almost in that it's so cheap you can get it sometimes for as low as like

00:14:16.480 | ten fifteen dollars but it's just a great way to cook hard-boiled eggs my

00:14:20.560 | wife loves them and so I've got this easy way to make basically perfect

00:14:24.440 | hard-boiled eggs and never have to worry about it and the kids love the music it

00:14:28.120 | makes when it's done so highly recommend that if that's a staple in your house a

00:14:33.480 | long time ago we had chef David Chang on and he was talking about any day cook

00:14:37.840 | ware and it's a set of microwave cookware that if you haven't listened

00:14:42.600 | to that episode go back because I think you won't believe me and this is

00:14:46.640 | something funny where I gifted it to my mom and she also didn't really believe

00:14:50.160 | me and then I told her to give a chance and now she's like I make all the

00:14:53.640 | vegetables I make all of our mashed potatoes and half the time she's like I

00:14:56.840 | never thought I would cook as much in the microwave as I do and so you know

00:15:01.720 | we've got a link for that I think they gave us a discount that still works so

00:15:05.240 | you'll find that on the gift guide really love their cookware comes in a

00:15:08.840 | couple different colors one other thing that I think will shock you is we've

00:15:12.400 | used it a lot for making fish there's this David Chang salmon recipe that

00:15:16.920 | we've made a bunch and I was surprised that frozen fish can be so good

00:15:20.680 | especially in the microwave for storing all these recipes for a long long time

00:15:26.280 | I've talked about the paprika app it costs money and I suggested it in the

00:15:30.240 | past as a gift because I think it's so good but the founder of an app called

00:15:34.080 | umami which is another recipe app emailed me and was like I I really think

00:15:38.560 | we made an awesome app and you'd be worth checking it out and so I did and

00:15:42.480 | it's pretty good we were able to import all of our recipes sort them plan out

00:15:48.000 | meals groceries and on top of that it is way way less expensive I think the

00:15:53.720 | paprika app across all your devices can cost you you know 50 60 70 dollars and

00:15:59.640 | the umami app best I can tell is actually free so big fan of that not

00:16:04.280 | really a gift but here's my advice if you could curate a bunch of family

00:16:08.040 | recipes if you could take all those old recipes that maybe your mother your

00:16:12.320 | grandmother your grandfather have in some sort of probably index cards or

00:16:16.920 | book and you could turn them all into a digital recipe library and send all of

00:16:22.960 | those recipes to different family members I think it'd be a really cool

00:16:25.920 | gift that would be something that really doesn't cost anything but you could just

00:16:30.520 | export the file and say hey I've got the entire book of family recipes in an in a

00:16:35.160 | format that you can use forever and save digitally so that's an idea for everyone

00:16:39.960 | device we use a lot is the Coravin wine preserver and we use it because we just

00:16:46.920 | don't always want to drink an entire bottle of wine it just lets you pour by

00:16:50.760 | the glass out of a bottle without ruining the rest of the wine without

00:16:55.040 | needing to finish the bottle of wine that week and it does it by replacing

00:16:58.640 | all of the wine with argon gas it's really curbed our feeling like we need

00:17:03.640 | to just finish an entire bottle at night and we almost never open the entire

00:17:07.040 | bottle unless we have people over on drinks we've been gifted a bunch of

00:17:12.160 | different insulated mugs for various reasons and my wife the other day was

00:17:17.080 | just saying none of them keep coffee warm like an ember mug and my mom loves

00:17:21.520 | her ember mug even though it's broke a few times the customer service has

00:17:25.960 | always replaced it so while I wish it never had issues I'm at least happy that

00:17:29.840 | they have good you know support but an ember mug makes a great gift they have

00:17:34.520 | travel ones and countertop ones I actually think sometimes during the year

00:17:38.200 | they're on sale at Costco which also makes me remember that the ninja creamy

00:17:42.560 | deluxe is available at Costco and that's where you're gonna get the best deal

00:17:46.160 | there I can't promise this is still there but if you're not a Costco member

00:17:49.840 | right now there's a deal to get a discounted Costco membership or at least

00:17:54.040 | a full price Costco membership with a $45 Costco shop card from Groupon so

00:17:59.120 | definitely something to look into for anyone who is looking at Costco stuff

00:18:03.680 | but doesn't have a membership on the topic of things to put in that coffee

00:18:08.120 | cup there is a product that I have never bought but I've heard great things about

00:18:13.360 | and is very expensive but if you need a gift like this the ratio coffee machine

00:18:19.000 | basically a machine to do pour over coffee at home it's anywhere from two

00:18:23.640 | hundred and fifty dollars all the way up to seven hundred dollars it looks really

00:18:27.400 | beautiful and if pour over coffee and automation and beautiful kitchen

00:18:32.400 | appliances are something that kind of meet the criteria of what you're looking

00:18:35.200 | for highly recommend if you need a subscription to coffee trade coffee and

00:18:41.000 | Atlas coffee club are two companies that I've heard good things about last thing

00:18:45.200 | that I'll share on the drinks because I found this product and I never knew

00:18:48.000 | where to share it is a spirit called the Pathfinder and the interesting thing

00:18:53.320 | about it is there is no alcohol in it but it's one of the best non-alcoholic

00:18:57.640 | spirits I've found and I'd say it's somewhat similar to an Amaro it's just

00:19:03.240 | really good and so if that sounds good to you take a look you might be able to

00:19:07.920 | find it locally at a handful of stores and is a great option for anyone not

00:19:12.000 | drinking this holiday season one more idea for food is doing gifting or doing

00:19:18.160 | a hot sauce challenge is something I love I actually went to a party that our

00:19:22.360 | previous guest Steph Smith hosted and she had the hot ones kit and did a

00:19:26.600 | tasting test you can buy ones from hot ones there are all kinds of products

00:19:32.480 | like this online I think we did the tame to insane challenge box goes all the way

00:19:37.760 | up to 11 I remember this very distinctly because number 10 is called paint Apple

00:19:42.440 | and it is a hot hot sauce and one time because it doesn't have one of those

00:19:47.240 | lids that makes it come out in smaller quantities Amy miscalculated and poured

00:19:52.680 | a lot of it on her taco and boy it was both comical and I felt bad for her but

00:19:59.000 | I still to this day think it's a delicious hot sauce so really loved

00:20:02.920 | doing one of these challenge boxes this was another gift for my parents that I

00:20:06.240 | never would have expected or asked for and it was a lot of fun but it also

00:20:10.000 | creates a fun activity that you can do during the holidays with your family so

00:20:14.520 | that stuff food and kitchen okay let's talk clothing and gear it would be hard

00:20:20.120 | for me not to start with Viorey gear right now I'm wearing three pieces of it

00:20:24.600 | and that was not intentional it just happens to be what I wear all the time

00:20:27.840 | I've got a pair of Sunday performance joggers highly recommend I've got a

00:20:31.960 | strato tech tee also highly recommend and a panto performance half zip hoodie

00:20:36.400 | love all of these products really anything with their dream knit fabric is

00:20:41.240 | amazing I was actually at a conference recently after giving someone a hug they

00:20:45.200 | said wow this is so soft what is it I was like oh it's Viorey I felt like I

00:20:48.440 | was a walking billboard for this company and and I don't even get all of my

00:20:52.000 | Viorey clothes for free I actually pay for them I just love them that much and

00:20:55.680 | so they've been a long time maybe our longest partner of the show big 20% off

00:21:00.560 | discount for anyone that's listening in the gift guide really love them Amy is

00:21:05.440 | as big of a fan as I am so many great products leggings sports bras shirts

00:21:11.600 | jackets everything but if you need to dress up while I do often wear the Viorey

00:21:18.040 | meta pants as my kind of nice dress pants and they're super comfortable if

00:21:22.360 | you do need kind of a fun design dress shirt for someone almost all of my dress

00:21:27.560 | shirts are from bonobos they've got all kinds of cool interesting designs some

00:21:32.640 | have Tigers some have bunnies some have foxes my kids love kind of picking out

00:21:37.120 | something creative so love their shirts and then also love gooder sunglasses

00:21:41.720 | they make a great stocking stuffer they're affordable but they're also

00:21:45.600 | really well made I've used them for years and almost all environments and

00:21:50.920 | because they're not that expensive you don't mind wearing them in the ocean or

00:21:54.600 | in the pool and I just really love that about sunglasses I hate owning a really

00:21:59.080 | expensive pair of sunglasses that you're worried you're gonna scratch or forget

00:22:02.160 | or anything like that and then a new clothing brand to me that my wife asked

00:22:07.600 | me to put on this list because she loves it is quince and all their clothes are

00:22:11.880 | really classic the exact shirt I think I probably own five to ten of is the

00:22:16.080 | Riviera short-sleeve shirt I think it's a great shirt so many different designs

00:22:20.440 | they don't go after any extreme trends but they're really high quality they

00:22:24.620 | have good manufacturing practices and they're just not as expensive as a lot

00:22:27.760 | of other brands and she just got me a really nice cashmere sweater that I'm

00:22:31.200 | enjoying a lot this is a great example because there is an Amex offer right now

00:22:36.320 | for $40 off $175 they also make great home products I think we use the quince

00:22:42.240 | duvet on our bed and it's wonderful so I'll come back to those Amex offers

00:22:47.280 | later but I just wanted to flag that when I noticed one of the things in this

00:22:51.240 | guide has a special deal it's worth including waterproof Birkenstocks I

00:22:57.160 | don't own a pair but I think my wife and our daughter are wearing them all around

00:23:01.800 | all the time our kids also really like Crocs I had to look up what these things

00:23:05.200 | are called but they have these little gibbets that you can kind of add to your

00:23:08.520 | Crocs for fun designs kids love them great stocking stuffer you can of course

00:23:13.040 | buy them from Crocs and they have thousands on Amazon as well next is

00:23:18.020 | arcade.ai which is a really cool custom jewelry website that my wife sent me and

00:23:23.240 | unfortunately because she sent it to me I can't probably find something to

00:23:26.600 | surprise her with but for all of you out there if you're looking for a gift for

00:23:29.940 | someone and it's in the jewelry area there's some really cool unique stuff on

00:23:33.560 | here and then last stance socks always make a great stocking stuffer big fan of

00:23:39.480 | their socks of course if you just need regular running socks I like what they

00:23:43.760 | sell at Costco the Puma socks there they're super cheap but when it comes to

00:23:47.720 | kind of fun unique socks stance does a really great job of making socks that

00:23:51.920 | last on the gear side I'm gonna start with the Tortuga backpack and day pack

00:23:56.800 | the day pack is a new product of theirs and it is amazing big shout out to the

00:24:01.920 | founder of Tortuga who's a listener of the show and helped us design some

00:24:06.160 | custom day packs for our trip to Iceland for everyone that came we've got logos

00:24:10.560 | on them really really amazing but their core backpack is also fantastic it's a

00:24:16.120 | big travel bag that still is a carry-on and it's basically my main bag when I'm

00:24:21.120 | going anywhere if I do need a roller board I have an away roller board and a

00:24:25.920 | Manos roller board that's a little bigger and if you need a diaper bag

00:24:29.920 | there is none better that I've found than what 50/50 gear makes another all

00:24:34.400 | the hacks listener who started this company really big fan of their diaper

00:24:38.440 | bag and we use it all the time just designed both for performance and you

00:24:45.240 | know aesthetic but as well as function and then Kuyana makes a travel case

00:24:50.440 | that my wife has gifted to a lot of people over the years you can get custom

00:24:55.040 | monogrammed their little leather bags they make a great makeup bag next let's

00:24:59.840 | talk health and fitness something I've been using for years now when I'm

00:25:03.560 | running is the shocks open run Pro headphones I mentioned the air pods

00:25:07.280 | earlier I love them for everything except running I love that these shocks

00:25:11.760 | headphones are open ear so you can hear things around you cars coming anything

00:25:15.860 | like that also when I'm running I really like the Nike slim waist pack I used to

00:25:20.920 | use a shoulder band and then my wife got this waist pack and I was like oh that

00:25:26.080 | seems silly and then I tried it I was like oh this is much better and so you

00:25:29.120 | can't see your phone while you're running but let's be real using your

00:25:32.200 | phone while it's on one of those shoulder bands while you're running is

00:25:34.700 | not really possible either so I've really enjoyed switching to this along

00:25:40.040 | the lines of running the Nike Vaporfly 3 shoes are fantastic race day shoes my

00:25:45.520 | speed actually improved pretty noticeably using them but they're not

00:25:48.760 | everyday shoes and so when it came to running I switched to the Nike Pegasus

00:25:53.800 | 41 shoes which I could totally customize online and I think would make

00:25:57.960 | a great holiday gift for anyone who needs a pair of running shoes another

00:26:02.600 | activity we'd like to do out which was actually a gift for us was stand-up

00:26:07.560 | paddleboard so if you live near water anywhere they're great with kids and

00:26:11.960 | there are a handful of inflatable ones you can get on Amazon or at Costco then

00:26:16.480 | I'm surprised at how often we use them just to kind of go out for an hour

00:26:20.520 | paddle around in the Sun winter is probably not the ideal time to use them

00:26:25.360 | but maybe it's the ideal time to buy them because they're probably not that

00:26:29.280 | popular yet and so I don't know it makes a great gift we have two of them and we

00:26:34.080 | go out with the kids probably once a month when it's warm Amy added the Jade

00:26:39.160 | Yoga harmony yoga mat which if you want a really high quality yoga mat this is a

00:26:44.200 | great one it's actually funny because I have this old crappy yoga mat and I

00:26:49.760 | always was like do you really need a nice yoga mat and every now and then

00:26:52.920 | we'll both do a yoga class together at home and I'm and I'll be like gosh your

00:26:59.240 | yoga mats are really nice mine is like chipping apart so really like that yoga

00:27:04.680 | mat when she's not using it sometimes I borrow it if you're lifting I've long

00:27:09.320 | been a fan of the Bowflex Select Tech adjustable dumbbells it just saves the

00:27:13.640 | need to have a whole rack of dumbbells and you can adjust in really tight

00:27:16.640 | increments love those for water bottles I feel like we've been gifted every

00:27:21.520 | water bottle under the Sun from conferences and companies but we've

00:27:25.720 | ended up slowly removing all the non hydro flask water ball bottles and

00:27:30.240 | keeping the hydro flask ones so you know that is definitely our house pick for

00:27:35.520 | water bottles and then last this is kind of another weird one but within the

00:27:40.560 | health and fitness world I think there are a handful of diagnostics that might

00:27:44.640 | make sense to give someone so for example high cholesterol runs in our

00:27:49.600 | family so I gave a lot of people in our family a LP little a blood test I just

00:27:55.960 | ordered it up at LabCorp Quest whichever was closer to a lot of people so they

00:27:59.640 | knew that it kind of reminds me of how lots of people were giving out 23andme

00:28:03.040 | kits back in the day I'm gonna dive into an episode about a lot of different

00:28:07.280 | diagnostic scans in the future but some of the interesting things to consider as

00:28:11.720 | gifts are getting someone a DEXA scan I did mine at DEXA fit and they have

00:28:17.560 | locations all around the country and that was a really cool experience so

00:28:21.120 | that would be a cool one not that expensive InstaLab has a longevity panel

00:28:26.200 | that's about $300 there's function health there's inside tracker I'll

00:28:31.400 | include links to all of these but that's something super interesting I know that

00:28:34.960 | some insurances might cover a few of these tests not all of them but it's

00:28:39.200 | kind of a weird gift to give someone but it was really really insightful for me

00:28:43.680 | to look at all this data scheduling a calcium score test with something that I

00:28:47.640 | know a lot of people in my family have done because of the history of

00:28:50.680 | cardiovascular disease so that's another one there's the true diagnostic true age

00:28:55.600 | score there's a true diagnostic biological age test there's just a lot

00:29:00.520 | of interesting things that could make for good gifts for someone you know well

00:29:05.520 | enough to you know sign up for a medical treatment or test or diagnostic okay on

00:29:12.240 | to the fun stuff let's talk about games I'm a big fan of all kinds of games in

00:29:18.680 | the past I've talked about box one which is best I could describe kind of like an

00:29:25.600 | adventure game meets an escape room for a single player served up in a box like

00:29:30.880 | a board game and I loved it and the only thing that I didn't love about it was

00:29:35.960 | once you play it there's no replay value so it's built and sold by a company

00:29:41.340 | called theory 11 and I happen to meet the guy Jonathan who started this

00:29:45.720 | company and runs it and I asked him this year I said hey is there anything cool

00:29:49.960 | coming out and I had no idea what he was gonna say but he told me box 2 is coming

00:29:54.640 | out now I can't look at the website right now because it's not even been

00:29:58.080 | announced but by the time this episode comes out box 2 will be out I 100% will

00:30:04.080 | be buying box 2 immediately as soon as it's there or at least giving it to

00:30:07.380 | someone as a Christmas gift idea it was so much fun playing box one highly

00:30:12.760 | highly recommend theory 11 also sells magic tricks but they also sell the most

00:30:17.480 | beautiful playing cards out there in almost every possible design you could

00:30:22.680 | imagine from Broadway shows to movies to Harry Potter one of the best stocking

00:30:28.960 | stuffers you can give someone everything from box sets down to a single deck love

00:30:34.000 | what theory 11 makes and if anyone in the family or your kids are aspiring to

00:30:39.180 | learn magic tricks they have so many high-quality magic products as well a

00:30:43.520 | couple small games that are easy to travel with Monopoly deal we play all

00:30:47.860 | the time coup we play all the time and a new one that someone brought on our

00:30:51.880 | Iceland trip that I didn't get a chance to play but was told is amazing is

00:30:56.440 | Illamat it's a card game I'm excited to test it out I bought it but I have not

00:31:02.360 | played it yet for anyone that loves games I've really enjoyed having a

00:31:06.040 | subscription to games magazine each month I get kind of a magazine with a

00:31:09.760 | bunch of everything from word puzzles to other riddles and games another puzzle

00:31:14.240 | that I think is fun as a stocking suffer is called Hino Maru it's a Japanese flag

00:31:19.640 | puzzle and I'm telling you it's so simple in its design and it is so

00:31:24.840 | difficult I've been trying to solve it for the better part of a few months I

00:31:29.640 | haven't sat down for hours and hours but every time I have 15 minutes I take it

00:31:34.000 | out and try to figure it out and it's both difficult and simple and easy and

00:31:38.640 | inexpensive I'll link to that it's really great and then I've recently

00:31:43.640 | gotten excited watching these different puzzle boxes get played so there's a guy

00:31:48.800 | named Chris Ramsey that has a YouTube channel where he tries to solve all of

00:31:52.160 | them and records himself doing it and most of them are pretty expensive and so

00:31:57.480 | I haven't really wanted to throw down hundreds of dollars for a puzzle as much

00:32:01.680 | as watching him do them makes me want more and more of them if anything I want

00:32:06.200 | to start kind of a puzzle renting service because once you solve it

00:32:09.640 | there's not a lot of use for it but this company Puzzle Potato had an item on

00:32:14.160 | Kickstarter which was called the Tesla puzzle and I thought well this one's

00:32:17.880 | less expensive than most let's support them I bought it it came it was amazing

00:32:22.920 | awesome gift idea under $100 highly highly recommend for anyone who likes

00:32:28.440 | puzzles and challenges and escape room style things but that can be done at

00:32:32.480 | home and the only unfortunate thing is now that I've done it I can't solve it

00:32:36.440 | again because I already know the answers so that's gonna become a gift for

00:32:40.480 | someone else this year finally this isn't really a game but I really enjoyed

00:32:44.720 | trying to learn the art or skill of lock picking not for any nefarious reasons

00:32:49.920 | but just because mechanically it's very difficult even though you know how it

00:32:54.360 | works and so one cool thing that you could give to anyone who might be

00:32:58.040 | interested is a little lock picking kit you can actually see how locks work a

00:33:01.920 | lot of them come with kind of clear locks that you can look into so that you

00:33:06.480 | can see how the process works obviously I wouldn't give this gift to anyone with

00:33:10.160 | criminal tendencies but as a just a skill to pick up and practice it's

00:33:14.800 | really interesting two more categories on kids I want to share one of my

00:33:19.320 | favorites which every time I'm using it another parent sees it and says what is

00:33:23.520 | that where do I get that and that's the ooky kids learner skateboard it's

00:33:27.360 | basically a skateboard that can help someone progress from probably the age

00:33:32.280 | of 18 months two years old all the way up to five or six or seven and it's just

00:33:39.040 | been really awesome to watch our girls learn how to balance and learn how to

00:33:42.360 | lean and they've really enjoyed it these kids gifts are gonna go all over the

00:33:47.520 | place but another one is the Melissa and Doug pizza play set we've got a lot of

00:33:52.560 | these little like play sets around the house but for some reason the pizza one

00:33:56.260 | just seems to be the most popular so really like it you can get it at Target

00:34:01.480 | another thing that's been hugely popular in our house is a Tony box I talked

00:34:06.040 | about it a while ago because not only can you buy characters that sit on top

00:34:09.840 | of this box that's basically a speaker that's connected to the internet and

00:34:13.320 | plays songs and stories but you can record your own custom stories in a past

00:34:18.520 | episode I talked about how I used AI to create stories in my own voice that I

00:34:23.480 | generated which had GPT I've heard some good feedback also about the Yoto which

00:34:28.720 | is a alternative to the Tony it's nice to have a thing that's kind of like

00:34:32.780 | watching shows for kids that isn't screen time another one that we actually

00:34:36.720 | had to wait for a while on was a nugget which is basically a set of I don't know

00:34:41.200 | like cushions that you can use to build forts that you can use to create kind of

00:34:45.640 | sitting area you could use as a makeshift bed for a sleepover it's really

00:34:51.200 | great another really cool thing we saw at Costco for kids that could be a fun

00:34:54.880 | holiday gift is this really cool Lego table that kind of pops open stores all

00:35:00.680 | these Legos closes has a whole Lego surface on top so that was one that I

00:35:05.280 | was like gosh we have something similar but I really want this one so that's a

00:35:09.100 | good one for kind of fun stocking stuffers jellycat stuffed animals are a

00:35:13.680 | big hit in our house as well as coloring books and there's actually a cool

00:35:18.040 | coloring book kit that I'll link to there's nothing unique about it other

00:35:21.600 | than the markers are all kind of built into it for anyone who has really young

00:35:25.040 | kids or needs a gift for someone with young kids I love every subscription or

00:35:29.720 | just a gift they make these Montessori toys and kits so for every kind of three

00:35:34.760 | months or four months of age they have a different kit that they send with

00:35:38.800 | everything from books to an instruction guide to a bunch of different toys and

00:35:44.440 | learning activities that we've really loved another thing that we don't yet

00:35:48.280 | own but I really want and I don't have a particular brand to recommend is a

00:35:52.920 | Swedish ladder which is kind of like a indoor gym for kids that you can mount

00:35:58.520 | on the wall some of them are freestanding and if you just search for

00:36:02.840 | it on Amazon there are a bunch of different ones but this is something

00:36:06.480 | that if we had the right space in the house we would probably definitely have

00:36:09.760 | it right now we do not but it's something that I think our kids would

00:36:13.600 | love and would be a really awesome thing to get them that is on the list and has

00:36:19.160 | been for a while we just don't have a place to put it and then I probably

00:36:22.760 | should have mentioned this in the game section but I'm not gonna go through all

00:36:26.080 | the kids games there's so many but I'm gonna flag one and it's not a

00:36:30.280 | particularly fun game for adults but the only reason I'll share it is because

00:36:34.240 | there are not a lot of games that are easy to play with a very young kid 18 to

00:36:40.280 | 36 months but there's this game called monkey around which basically is a

00:36:45.200 | beanbag banana and each card just tells you something to do with it and our kids

00:36:51.000 | really loved it at that age when we were trying to you know play a board game

00:36:55.760 | with them and they were just weren't ready for it I would recommend the game

00:36:58.760 | first orchard which was a good board game to kind of start to teach kids

00:37:02.640 | about games but man this monkey around game they just loved for for I guess all

00:37:08.720 | the obvious reasons but all they do is here's a banana balance it on your head

00:37:11.800 | hop around with the banana toss it hold it under your legs that kind of stuff

00:37:15.280 | last is the books and learning section a few things here so if you want to learn

00:37:21.560 | about diving down rabbit holes on the internet

00:37:24.160 | Steph Smith's course that we talked about in my episode with her there's

00:37:28.080 | still a $200 discount for her course called internet pipes if you want to

00:37:32.280 | learn really anything huge fan of master class we've partnered with them for a

00:37:36.360 | long time I've given it as multiple gifts there's gonna be a holiday promo

00:37:40.840 | on the gift guide so I just think it's a really excellent gift especially if you

00:37:45.560 | need a last-minute idea because you can buy it online but even if you don't

00:37:49.080 | there's so many different things that really anyone can learn from someone

00:37:52.760 | wants to dial in their credit card game you could obviously get them a copy of

00:37:56.280 | my credit card tool and then last one that we've given to I think every family

00:38:02.200 | member is story worth which is basically a book that gets built over the year so

00:38:09.000 | you send all these prompts to someone in your family you know a parent a

00:38:13.480 | grandparent they answer these emails and then at the end of the year all of the

00:38:17.920 | email replies get packaged up into a book so it might be something like tell

00:38:22.860 | me about your first date tell me about your first job what was your childhood

00:38:26.920 | like where did you live and you start to build these amazing stories from your

00:38:30.680 | family that you can pass down from generation to generation last on books

00:38:35.120 | there are so many books that different guests we've interviewed this year have

00:38:39.160 | talked about I'm just gonna put the full list of all the book recommendations in

00:38:43.700 | the gift guide again all the hacks comm slash gifts instead of just reading the

00:38:47.920 | name of all the books right now so I hope that gift guide was helpful but

00:38:51.600 | what I think is even more helpful is saving money on all the gifts you're

00:38:55.680 | buying whether they're on the list or not and so I want to talk about a

00:38:59.080 | handful of the ways I make sure I'm always getting the best deal so first

00:39:03.000 | off there are a few sale periods like Black Friday cyber Monday always a good

00:39:08.400 | time to consider what you're buying but do make sure that those sales are real

00:39:12.240 | and so I always like to install the browser extension keepa which when

00:39:17.160 | you're browsing anything on Amazon you can look down and see if that price has

00:39:21.560 | changed over time so right now I'm trying to find a product that has a good

00:39:25.740 | history I'm looking at the ooky skateboard and I'm seeing that right now

00:39:30.360 | it's $139 but prior to like October 5th it was always $120 and it's dropped a

00:39:37.720 | handful of days since then so that tells me that 139 maybe is the new price and

00:39:44.000 | 119 is maybe the the previous price but if on side Black Friday they end up

00:39:49.520 | saying oh it's on sale and they drop it to 135 you know it might not really be a

00:39:54.120 | sale I have seen a ton of times where people increase the base price discount

00:39:59.280 | it and it looks like a big sale but it's not actually that much cheaper than it

00:40:03.000 | normally is so the keepa browser extensions really helpful to be able to

00:40:07.200 | track those prices now once you've decided that you want to buy something

00:40:11.160 | and it's a good price I want to make sure that I can get cash back if

00:40:14.960 | possible and so I like to go to cash back monitor and that gives you a

00:40:18.760 | dashboard of all of the different places you can get cash back so for example

00:40:23.000 | let's take Nike let's say you want to buy those Pegasus 41 shoes that I

00:40:26.360 | mentioned which is actually a process that I went through when I bought them

00:40:29.260 | and you can see that you can get anywhere from you know one to two miles

00:40:33.800 | per dollar with airlines you can get you know two credit card points sometimes

00:40:39.200 | there's bonuses so one of the credit card portals right now is at 15 points

00:40:43.000 | per dollar but you can also just get cash back so you know Rakuten's at 8%

00:40:48.160 | back top cash backs at 10% and this stuff changes all the time so I think

00:40:53.160 | going on to cash back monitor seeing what kind of deals are there is

00:40:56.520 | interesting but also some of these cash back portals have their own promotions

00:41:01.760 | and so as of recording this I'm not sure if these will still be around when this

00:41:05.880 | episode comes out but for anyone who is subscribed to the all the hacks

00:41:09.080 | newsletter I will have sent them all around to everyone before they expire if

00:41:13.520 | you're not all thehacks.com/email to get on for the next time but all the

00:41:18.240 | airline shopping portals American Delta Southwest Alaska and United all have

00:41:22.960 | promos going on right now where if you spend a certain amount through the

00:41:27.440 | portal they'll give you a lot of bonus miles and those bonuses end up being

00:41:31.920 | somewhere in the three to seven percent back range and that's primarily my

00:41:38.040 | calculations looking at giftcards.com which I'll come back to but I'm always

00:41:42.520 | looking at ways to get cash back when I'm shopping online if there's a bonus

00:41:46.960 | at an airline portal that could make sense if not I'm almost just focusing on

00:41:52.040 | Rakuten because you not only get cash back but you can convert that cash back

00:41:55.980 | to Amex points if you want and with a referral which I'll put in the gift

00:42:00.280 | guide you can usually get a free 30 to 40 dollars with your first purchase so

00:42:05.080 | 99% of all my shopping online I'm doing Rakuten but every now and then I'll go

00:42:10.400 | to cashback monitor and I'll see oh Rakuten might be 3% and there's some

00:42:15.040 | promo going on that's 20% back from some other portal now there are always some

00:42:20.680 | terms sometimes they're pretty straightforward and it's just this is

00:42:24.080 | the deal and sometimes it says well it only applies in this certain area or a

00:42:28.320 | maximum purchase amount of this so definitely look at those terms but I've

00:42:32.320 | earned probably hundreds maybe thousands of dollars in cash back from optimizing

00:42:38.080 | these cash back portals a new one that I'm exploring is called kudos and the

00:42:42.960 | way it works is a little bit more confusing but if you load your credit

00:42:47.160 | cards into it and they multiply your credit card rewards so it looks like

00:42:51.840 | according to them you can get up to 25% back this must be a startup that's

00:42:58.080 | funded by some kind of venture capital because I don't see how you could get 25

00:43:02.080 | percent back sustainably so I'll put my referral link in there if you want to

00:43:06.120 | get a head start to some of that cash back and play around with it but those

00:43:10.480 | are kind of a couple of the ways I'm getting cash back when I'm buying but

00:43:14.800 | that's not it so I want the best price I want to get the most cash back but when

00:43:19.040 | it comes time to pay for it yes ideally you're using the right card but even

00:43:24.280 | better than using the right credit card is oftentimes using a gift card and so

00:43:29.240 | what I'll do is I'll go online and see if I can find a gift card for that

00:43:33.940 | merchant that might actually be cheaper than actually using a credit card when

00:43:39.440 | you factor in all the points and everything like that so a few options

00:43:42.640 | here so one obviously you could go buy the gift cards at a store if there's a

00:43:46.400 | sale a lot of times on the weekends for whatever reason Kroger Safeway have been

00:43:50.840 | having deals where you earn a lot of extra points or discounts for buying

00:43:54.280 | gift cards so that's one option Costco is known to have a bunch of gift cards

00:43:58.640 | on sale but they usually have limits so I know recently you could get uber gift

00:44:03.160 | cards for $75 for $100 in value or DoorDash and Instacart for $80 for

00:44:08.760 | $100 of value they also regularly have $500 of Southwest credit for $430 so a

00:44:16.160 | lot of ways to buy them yourself but in limited quantities and only when they

00:44:19.840 | happen to be on sale and in stock though Costco's are available on their website

00:44:23.720 | but there are also a few apps that I use regularly to find gift cards and so one

00:44:28.640 | of them is the Pepper app so you can go to GoPepper.com or you could just search

00:44:34.200 | for Pepper in the App Store and the way it works is you can buy gift cards at

00:44:38.600 | whatever value you want and earn Pepper points I mentioned this in my episode

00:44:43.480 | with Kevin Rose and the points you earn could be anywhere from like the

00:44:47.800 | equivalent of 4x points which is about 4% cash back but sometimes they boost it

00:44:53.840 | and I've gotten Amazon gift cards for 14x points which is effectively 14%

00:44:59.880 | cash back which is way better than using my Amazon card to go and buy anything on

00:45:04.900 | Amazon because that's maximum getting me 5 maybe 6% if you're gonna delay your

00:45:10.440 | shipping and have the right card to do that so these gift cards go on sale all

00:45:15.160 | the time so it's hard to know when you're gonna get the best deal on what

00:45:19.000 | but right now I'm looking and if you wanted to buy Lowe's gift cards you can

00:45:23.080 | get 15% off or 15x points Nike's at 15 Kohl's is at 16 and so every day the

00:45:30.320 | deals change but there's a lot of great opportunity if you're gonna spend $200

00:45:34.780 | make sure you use someone's referral code because you get an extra $20 mine

00:45:39.320 | is 612-342 it's not the normal thing where you use a name or a link it's just

00:45:45.520 | a six digit number so that's one option another option is an app called Flues

00:45:50.520 | you can find it in the App Store and they basically also let you just buy

00:45:54.880 | gift cards they're usually not at that big of a discount as I've seen when

00:45:59.920 | Pepper app puts things on sale but an example right now I'll get to that why

00:46:05.900 | we were making this purchase but we're making a purchase on Hannah Anderson to

00:46:09.720 | buy some Christmas pajamas and you could earn up to 5% back so you go and purchase

00:46:16.200 | a gift card you put in the exact amount you want even to the scent and you

00:46:21.320 | basically pay for the gift card and then you just get some cash back that I think

00:46:25.340 | you could just use for another gift card so if you can't find as good of a deal

00:46:28.720 | in Pepper you might be able to find it in the Flues app and even if there's not

00:46:33.920 | a bonus sometimes it's still a great deal so I'll mention in a few minutes

00:46:37.200 | why we were shopping on Hannah Anderson to buy holiday pajamas and they had a

00:46:42.480 | 5x points which is basically 5% off and there was no other deal for Hannah

00:46:47.200 | Anderson so that was way better than me using a card that would probably just

00:46:50.880 | get 2% back or 2 points per dollar another interesting option is giftcards.com

00:46:56.880 | and the reason it's interesting is because it's in a lot of the shopping

00:47:00.040 | portals so I know on Rakuten you get two and a half percent back on purchases up

00:47:03.960 | to $2,000 but if you stack it with a lot of those airline deals that are

00:47:08.280 | happening in the airline shopping portals then you can get three and a

00:47:12.180 | half to seven percent back so there could be some really good deals they

00:47:15.400 | also have their own rewards program so when you end up buying something on

00:47:19.200 | giftcards.com you can stack the cash back with whatever cash back portal or

00:47:23.800 | Rakuten you're using you can stack the giftcard.com rewards and on top of that

00:47:28.120 | you can also layer on your credit card rewards depending on those factors and

00:47:32.560 | what you see on an app like Pepper it may or may not be a good deal but it's

00:47:37.240 | at least an option especially with some of these holiday shopping portal bonuses

00:47:41.120 | there are some going on now and there will inevitably be more going on in the

00:47:44.980 | future now one interesting thing I've learned as I dug into all of this

00:47:49.280 | giftcard buying and selling marketplace is that a lot of people who buy these

00:47:53.800 | gift cards are turning around and reselling them so there's a pretty

00:47:57.040 | active marketplace for buying and selling gift cards I might actually do

00:48:01.840 | an entire episode on that and bring on someone I've gotten to know who runs one

00:48:05.880 | of them but if you are interested and this is kind of a long shot might be

00:48:10.640 | relevant to two or three of you but if anyone's making very very large

00:48:14.600 | purchases let's call it in the probably 10,000 plus a year range at a major

00:48:20.720 | merchant whether that's Amazon Best Buy Apple uber door - instacart there is an

00:48:26.880 | opportunity to actually buy those gift cards wholesale in bulk and I'm happy to

00:48:31.600 | try to help make that happen for anyone that's interested but you know but most

00:48:37.040 | of these wholesalers are really not interested unless you're in the kind of

00:48:40.040 | five-figure plus range otherwise it's just easier for you to go buy them from

00:48:43.800 | an app like pepper or giftcards.com or at Costco which is really the source of

00:48:49.200 | them all in the first place but the short answer is almost every online

00:48:53.560 | retailer it is a better deal to pay with a gift card that you buy at a discount

00:48:58.160 | than it is to pay with your credit card. The last big one is card-linked offers

00:49:04.560 | and so almost every credit card platform from every major issuer has a set of

00:49:09.280 | offers where from time to time there are things like get $40 off $100 get 10% off

00:49:15.600 | up to $200 at so many different retailers and I went back over time I

00:49:20.880 | mentioned this when I talked about quints earlier because there was an Amex offer

00:49:24.680 | for $40 off $175 purchase I actually went through Amex and Chase and looked

00:49:30.960 | at the lifetime dollars that I've earned from all of these card-linked offers and

00:49:35.880 | for me personally across my and Amy's cards it's twenty two hundred seventy

00:49:42.360 | dollars and fifty two cents which is actually pretty astonishing because that

00:49:48.160 | makes up for a lot of the annual fees that I've paid on a lot of these cards

00:49:52.000 | and it's been on things like Delta, Dropbox, Lovevery, Hydroflask, quints so

00:49:57.360 | absolutely worth especially right before the holiday season or anytime you're

00:50:01.560 | doing a lot of shopping to just go online and look at your cards website

00:50:06.840 | and see what deals are there sometimes there's nothing relevant sometimes

00:50:11.080 | there's a ton of relevant stuff that wraps up most of the ways I save money

00:50:15.040 | when I shop if you go back and listen episode 195 it was 50 ways I earned more

00:50:19.760 | points without spending more there are a few more tactics that were in that

00:50:23.280 | episode that I'm not going to necessarily cover right here but

00:50:26.440 | hopefully I just gave you a bunch of gift ideas and ways to save money on

00:50:30.680 | those gifts now since I know you're all thinking hmm that was so valuable what

00:50:35.800 | gift should I give Chris for the holidays don't worry I'm not asking you

00:50:39.320 | to spend money and send me anything but I do have one gift that won't cost you

00:50:43.560 | anything and is so easy that I'll ask for and it's just if you could pick your

00:50:48.200 | favorite episode of the podcast or maybe it's a few different ones and share them

00:50:52.360 | or the podcast in general with anyone and everyone you think might enjoy it or

00:50:56.840 | get value from it it would really mean the world to me if you want to go above

00:51:00.800 | and beyond of course you could share the newsletter leave a rating and review but

00:51:04.600 | my main ask this year if you've gotten any value out of the show is to just

00:51:08.800 | share it with someone thank you so much in advance for that finally as I

00:51:13.680 | mentioned I want to wrap up and just share some of the holiday traditions

00:51:16.760 | that we have and I didn't bite anyone with a fun holiday tradition that they'd

00:51:20.440 | like to share to send an email podcast at all the hacks calm I'd love to

00:51:24.400 | collect them all and maybe find a place or a time to share them back with people

00:51:27.760 | so the first one I'll talk about is that on one side of our family we started

00:51:31.920 | doing a kind of everyone picks one person and gets one really nice gift and

00:51:37.480 | we actually evolved it to just be each couple so we might draw you know a

00:51:42.080 | sibling or a parent and everyone goes and tries to find something really nice

00:51:46.200 | and meaningful instead of trying to find a bunch of small gifts so for example

00:51:50.280 | one of them one year was an uni pizza oven and so we were able to kind of go a

00:51:54.080 | little bit above and beyond and get something really interesting for one

00:51:57.400 | member of the family and then that person had another person kind of like a

00:52:01.200 | white elephant except serious gifts instead of fun gifts so that was one

00:52:05.640 | thing we did each year everyone gets an ornament in our family and so our tree

00:52:11.320 | is covered with all these different unique ornaments sometimes it's related

00:52:14.860 | to something we did that year for example one year I was really into

00:52:18.720 | fantasy football and so Amy got me a fantasy football ornament or it might be

00:52:22.200 | from a trip we took so we have a very personalized set of ornaments on the

00:52:26.800 | tree as I mentioned earlier we buy matching pajamas usually from Hannah

00:52:33.680 | Anderson both for Christmas morning and to take photos which has been a fun

00:52:38.280 | tradition we actually try not just to buy gifts for our family but for other

00:52:42.480 | people who don't have them and we've tried to incorporate the girls in this

00:52:45.920 | process and sometimes local businesses or our employers have driven this other

00:52:50.480 | times we drive it ourselves and we'll go and say take a list of ten people and

00:52:55.960 | we'll go to Target and we'll have the girls help us pick out gifts for a bunch

00:53:02.080 | of kids or adults and on that day it's not about anything for us it's about for

00:53:06.980 | someone else so we like to try to incorporate some form of giving

00:53:10.880 | especially with the kids so that they understand that you know there are a lot

00:53:15.080 | of people that don't have what they have and they get to experience what it's

00:53:18.360 | like to try to provide for others last year we actually did a big charity

00:53:23.120 | fundraiser on the podcast as you all know we ended up funding two entire

00:53:27.320 | water projects in Cambodia and based on the update I just recently got they

00:53:33.280 | finished all the permits partners supplies and over the next six months

00:53:36.840 | they're actually gonna be doing construction so stay tuned there

00:53:39.200 | another one is anytime a toy is introduced to our house we try to rotate

00:53:43.880 | another toy out and either give that toy away or put it in storage so there just

00:53:48.620 | aren't toys everywhere it turns out that if you take a toy and put it in a closet

00:53:53.720 | for six months and give it to your kids again it almost feels like a new toy so

00:53:58.760 | that's another great hack and then each year we tried to make a tradition out of

00:54:04.960 | doing a cookie decorating party so we'll bake a lot of holiday cookies and invite

00:54:10.240 | friends and family over using the Nick Gray cocktail party formula which if you

00:54:14.620 | didn't listen to that episode go back and check it out and invite people over

00:54:18.840 | and you can decorate cookies and leave with a little bag of cookies so I

00:54:22.720 | secretly want to evolve that to a gingerbread house making party but the

00:54:27.440 | sheer quantity of gingerbread that needs to be made is just not something that

00:54:31.280 | we're ready to do right now so I think those are most of the traditions I'm

00:54:34.920 | always open to more again share them podcast at all the hacks comm finally

00:54:40.720 | reminder that links to all the products and gifts and ideas I mentioned

00:54:44.840 | including dozens of them with really great discounts or referral codes are

00:54:48.880 | all in the show notes and at all the hacks comm slash gifts that is it for

00:54:53.900 | this week I will see you next week

2024 Holiday Gift Guide and Top Ways to Save This Season

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