Boxing Day! Things to Prepare for Next Year

This post may seem more relevant to those of you who have been following Pointshogger over the years. Basically, to win the miles and points game, you need to be constantly planning ahead. Post like this are to provide tips and tricks on how to be ahead of the game. You are more than welcome to read my previous Boxing Day posts to get caught up (2016, 2015, 2014, 2013).

Did you ever wonder where the phrase “Boxing Day” came from? It actually originated from the United Kingdom with roots to the British Empire. It is suppose to be the equivalent of Black Friday in the United States. However, it is not common for stores to open at sporadic hours. We will either see regular business hours or even reduced hours, which I find more difficult to build up hype.

I also think that Boxing Day / Black Friday have lost much of its flare as we do not see the ridiculously cheap sales that would attract long lineups anymore. It is slowly becoming just a regular busy shopping day where people have free time to go shop.

As a result, my strategy for shopping in general is to stay on top of deals throughout the year. The idea is, within a 12-month span, stores will offer various sales throughout the year. All we are really doing is comparing the discounts so know we know which discount is a good deal. Let’s say from January to November, we see discounts of 25%, 40%, 60%, 30% off. When Boxing Day rolls around, if we only see a 50% off, then we know for next time that the 60% off was the top deal. Of course, they may come out with a 70% discount a year later, but by then, they may have increased the regular price anyway.

Going forward, I suggest keeping a running list of the things that you anticipate to buy over the next 1-2 years, so that you can start tracking the discounts now, so that you will know when you run into a good deal.