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"If you&amp;#039;re like most Americans, you probably feel you have more holiday cheer than cash this season. But then again, you&amp;#039;ve probably gotten good at making smarter spending decisions over the past few not-too-flush years, says Todd Mark, the vice president of education for the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Dallas. Harness that resourcefulness and trim your holiday bills without sacrificing any festivities with these nine smart strategies:  1. Follow the Crowd  Stretch your gift budget by purchasing from sites that discount \u2014 50 to 90 percent, usually \u2014 when a certain number of people agree to buy. Jasmere.com, groupon.com, woot.com, and tippr.com sell items and services at wallet-friendly prices (e.g., $19 for a $50 tea-brewing gift set). Livingsocial.com and buywithme.com are other sites worth visiting. They offer discounts of 50 percent or more at restaurants, spas, and other local businesses (say, $35 instead of $80 for an hour-long massage). Deals can change daily, so be prepared to jump when an enticing offer appears. Do check the fine print to make sure you&amp;#039;re not saddling the recipient with any tough restrictions or extra fees, Mark says. You can cash in, too, by redeeming these sites&amp;#039; certificates or codes yourself to offset other costs: Paying $10 for $30 worth of pastries at a local shop can take care of desserts for a family get-together and leave change in your pocket. 2. Stash Cash for Maximum Savings  Although there aren&amp;#039;t that many shopping days left till the holidays, retailers will still treat you to as much as 14 percent earnings on any money you put aside pre-holiday. The best deal we&amp;#039;ve found: Online savings tool smartypig.com (which partners with FDIC-insured BBVA Compass, a Sunbelt-based financial institution) allows you to stow money as you would at any other bank, but you can withdraw your balance in the form of bonus-added retailer gift cards. Someone who opened an account with $500 in November could turn that into $570 in Lands&amp;#039; End gift cards, a 14 percent bonus, in two weeks. 3. Avoid Shipping Fees  Free shipping is one of the most common holiday promotions; hunt for codes on freeshipping.org and retailmenot.com. Another option: site-to-store shipping. Walmart, Payless Shoesource, L.L.Bean, and Sears, among other retailers, provide free delivery of at least most of their products to the store nearest you. This can help you deploy holiday-season coupons to greatest advantage. For instance, you could redeem a coupon for 20 percent off instead of one for free shipping and not pay a dime to get the item transported to your neighborhood store for pickup. 4. Shop at Night  At stores on Black Friday, only a lucky few arrive early enough to grab the deeply discounted door-buster laptop or TV. Online, your odds are much better, says Dan de Grandpre, editor-in-chief of sale-tracking site dealnews.com. &amp;quot;Last year, everything that was a door-buster at Walmart was available at walmart.com,&amp;quot; he says. Tip: Check in at 12:01 A.M. ET; if the discount isn&amp;#039;t available, log on again at 4 or 5 A.M., when stores open. You&amp;#039;ll beat the crowds and nab the best deals. 5. Know the Competition  Do spend some time reviewing the latest sales flyers from your favorite retailers and the competition, De Grandpre says. Some stores suspend price matching on Black Friday, but at many it&amp;#039;s still an option. Check the fine print on the circulars. Also, don&amp;#039;t forget to find out about post-purchase price matching. Some stores will refund the difference if you spot the item for less somewhere else within a week or two. Bring your receipt and proof of the lower price (such as an ad, a cell phone picture, an online printout) to the customer service desk.  6. Find a Tree Almost for Free  By the middle of December last year, artificial trees were already an end-of-season sale item, with major department stores and home and garden stores discounting prices by as much as 50 percent. And live trees can often be found for a song, too, at hardware and garden-center stores such as Lowe&amp;#039;s, which regularly sells fresh six-foot Douglas fir trees for prices as low as $25.  7. &amp;quot;Friend&amp;quot; Favorite Retailers  Earlier this year, fans of Banana Republic on social networking site facebook.com got an exclusive coupon for 25 to 30 percent off a $100 purchase to use during a private shopping event. Check out favorite businesses on Facebook as well as on twitter.com, foursquare.com, and other social networking tools for specials. 8. Phone it In  Before you make a big purchase, make sure you&amp;#039;ve finagled a first-class deal by using your phone. You can take a cell phone picture of an item&amp;#039;s bar code and upload it to some shopping sites for a fast online price comparison, says Brad Spirrison, the managing editor of appolicious.com, an app-review site. His pick: the free app ShopSavvy (biggu.com) for iPhone, Android, and Nokia phones.  9. Grab Last-Minute Deals  Conventional wisdom says that last-minute shoppers wind up overpaying, but procrastinators can end up with the sweetest deals, De Grandpre says. Free gift-box and sometimes also shipping promotions were available in mid-December at such sites as redenvelope.com,wine.com, and bluenile.com last year. Just mind the cutoffs for holiday arrival; there&amp;#039;s a fine line between shopping late\u2014and too late. 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