How a Sales Tax Holiday Can Save You Money

When your home needs items but you are on a strict budget, you may want to consider taking advantage during times where you can avoid paying the sales tax on your items. This is known to most states as a sales tax holiday. States do this to try and help consumers save that little bit of money and to try and boost sales each year. This is just one of the ways that you can save money while shopping for the things you need most. Here are a few ways that a sales tax holiday can boost your savings.

What is a Sales Tax Holiday?

A sales tax holiday is a state's way of trying to get more people to go out and spend money, while saving money at the same time. More people are apt to spend money on things they need when they know they get a discount, so this helps to boost the economy. It is a day where certain items are exempt from sales tax, decreasing the total amount spent by consumers on products they would have needed to buy anyway. Quite a few states have participated in this program over the years, which is helping to boost local economies within these states.

What States Offer Sales Tax Holidays?

In recent years, 18 states have offered sales tax holidays to their residents. These states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Not each of these states offer the holidays on an annual basis, but many of these states offer them every few years as an incentive for the residents to spruce up their homes with items that will save them money.

What Items Qualify for No Sales Tax?

The sales tax holidays cover many different products, such as:

• Computers
• School supplies
• Appliances with an Energy Star rating (the ones without are on an individual basis)
• Clothing
• Hunting supplies
• Emergency preparedness supplies

There are other items as well, but each state has its own list of the eligible items that it will allow to qualify. If you are pondering how to save money while shopping for the items you need for your family or home, then taking advantage of this exemption can quickly add up to a nice bonus to your savings account.

How Else Can I Save Money When Shopping?

When you must go out and buy things for your home, sometimes it becomes inevitable for you to buy something on credit instead of being able to buy it with cash. If you have been keeping your credit protected and your credit score rating high, then this should not be an issue as your interest rate will be low. This will make your payments low enough to typically not harm your budget. However, if your credit score rating is low or someone has stolen your identity, your payments might be quite high, making you struggle to keep up with the payments. Keeping your credit protected is one of the most responsible ways to save money when shopping because you end up paying a negligible difference over what you would pay with cash.

There are numerous ways to save money while shopping. If you take the time to protect yourself from ID theft and credit card fraud at the same time as you plan out your shopping, you should not have to worry about your credit score rating being so low that you have to pay more in interest. Taking the time to shop when the time is right and keeping your credit score as high as possible are two of the most logical ways of saving money for the items your home and family need most.

Joy Mali is an active blogger who is fond of writing articles on Finance and advising people to monitor their credit history to ensure a clean and error free report. Follow her on Twitter to know more on how a sales tax holiday can save you money.