Merry Christmas!
BOSTON (CBS) - Even I don't want to talk about money today.
Some of you are not celebrating Christmas today and you may be heading out to a Chinese restaurant or a movie.
By now the presents have been opened, some of the toys already discarded or broken, and the trash bags are full. The smallest of the clan are playing with the boxes and ignoring the expensive educational toys.
People have begun to make piles of their loot. In the perfect world everyone would have loved the gifts you gave them and everything would fit perfectly.
But we're not in the perfect world are we? So one of those piles is of stuff that needs returning. If the recipient wants to return the item and get something else, give them the receipt- hopefully you still have the receipt- and let them get something different.
Most stores offered gift receipts that you could stick in with the gifts. But if you didn't get one try to find the original receipt.
The store policy is to give a refund at the lowest sale price if there is no sales slip. And that is a fair policy. I don't find any fault with that. But if you paid $200 for something and the store is only willing to give a refund of $125 I would be most frustrated.
So spend some time looking for your receipts. Label them and have them ready when someone asks if you mind if they return that plaid raincoat or the reindeer slippers you gave them. Also many stores are asking that the returns be made in the original packaging.
The receipts also give you an idea just how much you actually spent on Christmas. So you may want to spend a few minutes tallying it all up, not today, tomorrow will do and perhaps setting up a budget for next year using a Christmas Club so you will have the dollars in November when you start shopping.
