Shoppers Can Expect Great Gift Buys This Holiday Season

Retailers depend on robust end-of-year sales to turn a profit, but for 2008, the National Federation of Retailers forecasts holiday spending will increase only 2.2% from last year. That won't even beat inflation. It's good news for bargain hunters, though. Both brick-and-mortar and online retailers are gearing up to offer huge discounts to boost sales.

For example, Deal News predicts a DUAL Core Intel Laptop will go for as low as $299 on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and a Canon PowerShot SD1100 (recommended in our Simple Tech picks) will go for a very low $139.

So chin up. We've been through hard times before. To quote Rudyard Kipling, "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ..."