The holiday shopping season is here and right now there's no doubt your Facebook feed is flooded with articles telling you how to save the most money.
But how true are their claims?
Our VERIFY team tackles three of the "top tips."
First up, some blogs will tell you it's always better to use cash than credit.
So, we called up Ed Fox at the Cox School of Business at SMU.
"If there were no other considerations, credit is better than cash because you can actually use your cards to get points, to get miles, to get cash back," Fox said. "You can actually get a rebate of some kind or some credit for using it. Also, credit cards tend to give you the best consumer protection."
So we can VERIFY, no, it's not always better to use cash.
But, Fox warns, if you have a hard time controlling yourself go ahead and spend those nickles.
Second, is it better to wait for a sale at a high-end store or stick to a discount retailer?
"If you go with the upscale department store the service is going to be better and the return policies are going to be, at least, as generous, if not more generous," Fox said.
Fox added you'll also get more current merchandise because most discount stores rely on out of season overstock.
So, yes, it's better to shop the deals at higher-end stores.
And the third holiday shopping myth? Should you wait until the Super Bowl to get the best deal on a TV.
For this answer we checked with our own deal guy, Matt Granite, who tracks deals all year.
"The TV deals you see during Black Friday are 15 percent to 45 percent less expensive than the so-called big game TV deals we'll see at the start of the year," Granite revealed.
"One thing to keep in mind is there are more quality issues tied to the Black Friday televisions," he added. "Many of the brands are grade B brands and some of the televisions are underequipped."
We can VERIFY, no, you'll get a better deal but maybe not a better TV if you buy on Black Friday.
Sources:
Ed Fox, Marketing Professor, SMU Cox School of Business
