Did your high season European flight take a huge chunk out of your savings? Well, at least the shopping doesn't have to be as painful, even with the weak dollar conversion rates.

Many countries in Europe, France being the most evident with their "soldes", have government regulated retail sales. This means they can only slash retail prices twice a year, which results in mega summer and winter reductions. For a general timetable and list of countries click here. I can only speak for France and the UK, since these are the two countries in which I've participated in the sales frenzy (so much fun!). But here's how they generally work (I should note here that UK sales aren't regulated by the government, but they still offer huge seasonal sales):

The summer sales usually start at the end of June and last until mid/late July. And when I say mega sales, I mean almost every store participates -- even Alexander McQueen and Prada! Different rules probably apply to each store, but how early you hit the stores can make a difference in what you can find and how cheap you can find them. Most stores will start their price slashes at 50 percent, but will reduce up to 70 percent as the month goes on.