Target wants to be sure it gets your holiday business this year. The retail giant has seen its profits take a nosedive this year, as shoppers cut back to just the essentials. Nearly half the store's revenue comes from nonessentials, though, like fashion and trendy housewares. To be sure they move items like this over the next month, Target will be offering some serious bargains.

The company says that it will match prices with its chief rival, Wal-Mart, in local markets, and will offer daily rotating value items on its website, while aggressively cutting prices on popular national brands. Though Target has cut prices around the holidays in previous years, Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel says the company is really ramping up its promotions for 2008, and expects to be the price leader on many gift items.

This makes Target very attractive for holiday shoppers this year. I remember doing most of my shopping there last year anyway, and I saved myself 10% extra by opening the Target credit card on the day I spent $500 on gifts for my family. Then I paid it off and closed the account. If you can exercise discipline, there's no reason not to go for the in-store credit card offers, especially if you can take 10 or more percent off a large purchase. With the Target credit card profits dropping sharply recently, I wouldn't be surprised to see the store offer even better incentives to qualified applicants. Don't forget to check the website for those rotating value items, too.

Imagine it's Christmas morning. You rush downstairs and first check your Christmas stocking to see what Santa put inside -- a gasoline gift card. Surprise! Merry Christmas!

In what is now an ongoing joke in my household, I buy my wife a $10 Christmas gift card at one of the finer stores in town: Longs, Safeway, McDonald's or Burger King. I see practicality, she sees a cheapskate. Now, with the economy in a recession, it looks like more people are coming around to the practical view, despite the lack of Christmas morning excitement they produce.

This holiday season, more gift card recipients plan to use them for necessities and not on luxuries, according to a new study released by Bankrate, Inc.

Residents of Colorado Springs need not reach in their pocket this year for change when they hear the familiar ringing of the Salvation Army volunteer calling attention to its donation bucket. In a test program, some Santas wil be equipped to take plastic.

For the test, done in cooperation with U.S. Bank, the volunteers (augmented, when necessary, with paid temps) will be equipped with wireless card readers, so donors can swipe to support the Army's homeless shelter and meal programs.

The program stands to bring in more money for two reasons; the declining value of change, and people's propensity to give more using credit cards than when forking over cash. It may also reassure donors skeptical that 100% of the donated funds will reach the Salvation Army, and will provide documentation for those who wish to claim a deduction on their taxes.

Still, the sound of a card swipe isn't as satisfying as coins plinking into the traditional red bucket. But if the difference brings shelter and food to those in need and Christmas gifts for their children, I can live with the change.

As the unemployed father of a 4-year-old daughter who is starting to notice the ads on TV and in magazines for Christmas toys, I worry about the high-priced gifts from Santa that she may soon start asking for.

And along comes the $95 Maru doll, which is supposed to be the hottest new doll of the year and received the 2008 iParenting Greatest Products Award. As a new dad, I don't know if $95 is out of line for a doll, especially a new and popular one, but I do know there are at least three other dolls in our house that could be used as doorstops because they're certainly not being used as playthings.

Maru is 8, incredibly realistic-looking with fashionable clothes, and has arrived in the United States from a country that isn't named to live with her aunt and uncle. She comes with a storybook (don't all dolls?) that details how her new friends are helping her adapt in her new country.

November is one of the biggest months for video game releases as publishers try to make their way onto holiday wish lists with big titles such as Gears of War 2, Mirrors Edge, Call of Duty, Brothers in Arms, Little big Planet and many many more. Even picky gamers can easily spend $300-$400 to snap up just the highest rated games, let alone any of the casual games set to invade store shelves in the next two months. With so many releases it is no wonder that the GeekDad at WIRED came up with 5 ways to stretch your gaming dollar this fall.

GeekDad offers the following 5 ways to save money on games this holiday season.

1. Know your release dates and what games you can wait to buy.
   
2. Read reviews to avoid the crud that many developers shovel out this time of year.
3. Play the demo; nothing helps you separate the wheat from the chaff quicker than hands on time.
4. Trade in and or buy used games, even new release used games are $5 cheaper.
   
5. Join a gaming community, which exist solely to help others find cheap video game deals.
   

These are some excellent ideas for saving on games. I've already prioritized my game purchases for the rest of the year, planning to pick up Mirrors Edge on launch day while waiting until after the holidays to snag a used copy of Gears of War 2. With the prevalence of demos and reviews these days there is no excuse for making an uninformed game purchase, even as a gift. While we are talking about gifts, let me be one of the first to say, "there is no shame in giving a used game as a gift, after all, used games play the same as new ones!"

'Tis the season for giving! At least, the calendar says it is... but all the latest report indicate that charitable giving is on the decline now as the economic downturn forces us to tighten our purse strings more than in years past.

To try to combat that trend, Kraft Foods is teaming up with Feeding America, the largest hunger relief charity in the United States, to launch a new fleet of mobile pantries. Kraft is providing the charity with money to purchase 25 refrigerated trucks that will bring food to rural and urban areas where grocery stores and food pantries are difficult to reach. With three trips per week, the mobile pantries should be able to distribute the equivalent of 1.1 million meals per year.

This should set a spark under all of us as we prepare to shrink our holiday budget. We are still, after all, buying presents for our kids and pets. And while me may not feel we can afford to be as generous as usual when it comes to charities -- particularly food as prices keep going up -- we need to remember that there are people out there suffering from starvation. The donation of a couple cans of soup were easy to spare in past years, but it's not so now. Donations to food banks and soup kitchens is at a low point and demand is at a high, which is just a vicious circle as those who used to donate to the food kitchens are now turning to them for help instead, and charities across the country are struggling to keep up with demand.

In all, Kraft is putting $180 million into their efforts to combat hunger. If you have the means to help, think of your local food banks and soup kitchens this holiday season. These establishments can always use more volunteers to sort and serve food, and every donation helps, no matter how large or small.

Airlines are the squeaky wheel of the travel industry, and they get a lot of grease in the media, so by now we all know how to navigate ticket buying. But baggage fees are on the rise and airfares are an uncertain game of roulette, so many of us are choosing to go to Grandmother's house by land instead. Going over the river and through the woods isn't such a bad way to do it, either, because there are some sterling savings opportunities if you go by wheel instead of wing, as MainStreet.com points out in an article today.

Here's my take on some of Lyneka Little's suggestions:

ONLINE DISCOUNTS: Some suggestions are obvious to those of us who have been using a computer for more than a few months. Those include always checking the websites of your chosen carrier (Amtrak, Greyhound, and so on) to see if its online prices beat the ticket office. Don't stampede straight to the reservations search boxes, either, because most sites have a marked page of specials that shouldn't be ignored.

MEMBERSHIP PRIVILEGES: Make sure you milk every discount you can. I know plenty of people in their early 50s who squirm at their AARP eligibility, but when they realize that they can use that status to save some bucks, suddenly the card is waved with pride. Even young whippersnappers might have AAA membership, and that can bring some surprising deals (although it's a motoring organization, Amtrak will cut rates for it). Check your local AAA branch for a list of discount opportunities. Often, these price cuts will work even during the holiday rush, including at hotels.

I learned long ago that gift giving doesn't have to cost a fortune, especially when you are the family computer support guru. In fact, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations in my family normally end with me fixing someone's computer. I learned long ago that a USB thumb drive with copies of my favorite applications was a holiday must have, particularly for my relatives still on dial up.

Since I don't get to spend as much time at home as I used too, I end up with fewer house calls in the days following Christmas, making PC repair gift certificates less practical. Not to be dissuaded, this year I plan to revive my role as the tech support Santa and give friends and family a collection of free software that should make their lives easier. Shh, don't tell them, I want it to be a surprise.

The software categories include:

• Office package
• Photo editing
• Instant messenger
• Anti virus
• Spyware removal
• Web browsing

The following collection of software is all free and fills the holes left by the trial software installed on so many new computers. That's not to say this software is any less useful or valuable, the collection of programs below include some of my personal favorites which provide a rich user experience and in many cases let users grow into their features.

Brace yourselves, parents. The Christmas catalogs are starting to appear, and before long you'll be noticing all those dog-eared pages that signify where you can find the toys on your kid's wish list.

But smart moms and dads know that it pays to shop around. It could be that one or two of your child's picks can be found in -- a dollar store?

While browsing through Family Dollar's Christmas Toy Book, I was impressed by the brand names I saw there and even more impressed by the prices. Most of the toys in this online catalog were reasonably priced at $10 or $15, with some even less, some a little more and one item in the electronics section that was $30. Here's just a sampling of what I found:

You don't have to spend a lot of money to have a Merry Christmas or Happy Chanukah. When i was growing up my family didn't have a lot to spend on gifts and Chanukah is celebrated for eight days with a tradition of giving a gift each night.

So to keep things in budget, my mom used to find small gifts for each of us (I have two brothers) and hide one gift for each of us while we were at school. When we got home we'd have a treasure hunt to find the hidden gifts. We looked forward to going home each day to find our gifts. If we found someone else's gift the rule was to leave it where it was and not say anything.

By making gift giving fun, we didn't even think about the larger gifts we were missing out on. As we got older if we wanted a larger gift we did agree to give up the idea of one gift per day during Chanukah and instead got one large for the entire holiday.

Remember it's the traditions you set within in your family. If you need to stay on a tight budget this year, why not plan some free fun and small gifts. You can still show your love and celebrate the holidays without increasing your debt levels.

If you're in a quandary because you're short on gift money for Christmas this year, I have a suggestion for you. Why don't you pick up those tools of yours which are gathering dust, and build something with your own hands? There are tons of ideas out there for things you can make for gifts. If you have more time than money, consider what fine things your own hands might build.

You could create a fine doll house for your little girl, utilizing free doll house plans and recovered scrap materials. Shop the thrift stores for old book cases or cabinets which can be converted into cheap building materials. Then, simply apply your own imagination. There are tons of free building plans available for toys and games which would thrill either boys or girls. You could even try building a small storage cabinet for that PS3 or Xbox 360.

There's a great website called Instructables, which is loaded with an expansive variety of do-it-yourself projects which you can build as gifts. The Instructables user community will show you how to build a clock from an Altoids tin, or from a bicycle chain and gears. You can make really cool clocks from all kinds of stuff, including old vinyl records or junk car hubcaps!

All you need to do is decide how involved you want to get, and make a realistic assessment of your talents. You can build something small with free wood working plans, or you could build a greenhouse from scrap materials. When money is in short supply, all we need to do is become more ingenious and inventive. Come to think of it, that's pretty much how this country was built!

It was sticker shock that had me talking my six-year-old into helping me gather sunflower and calendula seeds from our yard a few weeks ago. A few dozen sunflower seeds had been nearly $3; same with the calendula, seeds so impossibly lightweight that the paper packet must have weighed four or five times its contents.

And there we were, gathering the dried curly seeds from the spent flowers, filling the little jar I'd brought outside to overflowing, requiring me to get a half-pint jar to house the wildly abundant cosmos seeds.

"We'll give them as Christmas gifts!" I said exuberantly, and since then, my son has been industrious, helping me gather seeds from bachelor buttons, onions, and calendula. When I do laundry, I find sunflower seeds in his pockets. They're the good ones -- infrared, a startling and gorgeous almost black-red flower -- so I save them.

Calendula and cosmos grow like weeds here in Portland, so it's easy this month to gather them and sort by color (if any of the flowers are still growing on the plants from which you harvest seeds) and store them in airtight containers. You'll want a relatively cool place; if you keep them in the fridge, be sure to find a moisture absorber to include in the container. Buy small envelopes or, even better, recycle spice jars and old manila envelopes into homemade wildflower seed packets. Have your kids help you decorate the envelopes. Flower seeds are not just a welcome gift (at least in my house) that will grow into beautiful flowers, but these species are all beneficial to other plants, mostly edible, and attract honeybees. What's more, you can sneak a little science into your holiday preparation. It's way better than going to the mall!

Every November for the last 18 years, Michael Graham, a 51-year old carpenter from Tennessee, has closed up shop, packed three red suits and a pair of black leather boots, and traveled to Fairfax County, Virginia, where he is the Christmas Santa at Tysons Corner Mall. This year, however, he won't be making the trip; although Graham had a contract until 2012, Tysons recently informed him that his services will no longer be needed. As the Washington Post reports, it is too late for Graham to find alternate employment and, without his yearly Santa salary, he will likely lose his home. Consequently, he is pursuing legal action against his former employer.

UPDATE: The AP is now reporting that the mall is rehiring Graham. Earlier in the week, the mall had apologized to its fired Santa and is trying to help him find a job. But now that won't be necessary.

Stores used to wait until one season was pretty much over before filling the shelves with next season's props. In the last couple of years though, the trend has been to overlap merchandise. Thus, a month or more before gardening tools are no longer needed, Halloween paraphernalia starts to make an appearance. And even while people are still preparing for Halloween and Thanksgiving, silver bells and glittery garland are winking at us from store shelves.

Well, I usually like to start thinking about Christmas shopping in October anyway and the dollar store is always a great place to start. Here are a few holiday items I found while out and about recently along with what's available from Dollar Tree Direct. Everything listed here is only $1.