The holidays are the biggest time of the year for gift giving and while giving to others is normally a good thing, it could also cause you some stress if your budget is a bit tight this year. If you are looking for additional ways to rustle up some cash for your holiday gift buying, one idea is to sell off some of the gifts you may have received in previous years but no longer use. Specifically, you can sell your unwanted gold jewelry for cash. If you want to maximize the amount of cash you receive for your gold, here are a few tips that might help:

Keep Your Emotions in Check

First things first -- you need to go through all of your gold jewelry and decide how emotionally attached you are to each piece. You don't want to sell something just because you need the cash, only to regret it later. The jewelry buyer also is not going to appreciate it if you suddenly pull some of your jewelry back off of the counter because you changed your mind at the last minute. You need to be able to go into the shop with money on your mind and leave sentiment at home, so choose carefully.

Get a Reputable Appraisal 

If you know that you own an especially valuable piece of jewelry with a very high karat count, it can help boost your chances of selling it for a high price if you get an appraisal done from a reputable source. You can then walk into the cash for jewelry shop armed with a printout of the appraisal in addition to the jewelry itself. You likely won't get the full amount the jewelry is valued at -- the shop owner needs to make a profit, of course -- but an appraisal can definitely help you get a better offer that should more than reimburse you for the cost.

Organize By Karat Count

The more karats in the gold, the more it is worth. When selling gold jewelry, you should show up to meet with the buyer with the gold already organized by karat count. If the buyer decides to weigh all of the jewelry, you don't want a higher karat piece accidentally getting mixed in with the lower karat pieces.

If you need some extra cash this holiday season, reach out to a local gold and jewelry buyer for more information.