Over the years I’ve become quite the shopaholic. I have a penchant for finding great deals and never pay full price for anything I buy.

But after mulling over my credit card statements and finding it increasingly difficult to make a Christmas list for myself (since I have everything I “need”), I decided to take it easy on the Boxing Day shopping this year.

When I was you get I used to round up a few of my friends and we’d wake up at sunrise to head to brave the shopping mall crowds. But with the increasing popularity of online shopping, and the barrage of deals that are available through merchants even before the 26th of December, it’s become much easier to shop from home.

Not only is it more convenient to shop from the comfort of your home, you avoid the crowds, are able to get more sleep, and you’re able to multitask so to speak via several open browser windows. This year all I purchased for Boxing Day was a couple of DVDs and an electric can opener for my mother from Best Buy. But it took me 5 minutes to do (not including the 17 minute checkout wait time as the site was bogged down with other online shoppers, but at least my browser didn’t crash), and my purchases will be shipped straight to my door (free shipping).

Now I understand that shopping online may have some disadvantages: purchasing clothing and shoes can be a pain if you’re not sure of the sizing. But many stores (eg. Old Navy, The Bay) have an excellent return/exchange policy. When I had to return some clothes to the aforementioned stores, all I had to do was go into the store and show the cashier my shipping receipt and I got a full refund.

What I’ve found about Boxing Day “deals” recently, is that they don’t really compare to the discounts that I’d see in previous years. Sure there are still some great deals (more than 50% off in some cases), but with the addition on Black Friday to the Canadian market in recent years, Boxing Day doesn’t seem to add up much.

In attempts to compete with their American counterparts and keep consumers in our side of the border, a lot of Canadian-based retailers offer Black Friday/Cyber Monday discounts the weekend of American Thanksgiving. This year I scored a lot of great deals on items and actually bought more that weekend (The Body Shop and Adidas had a huge sale), than I did on Boxing Day (in which most online sales began December 24th at 8pm).

That being said, now that my credit cards have gotten a workout, they need to go back in hibernation for the next little while.