Posted by I dread the approaching holiday season with each passing year. This year is no exception. The reason is that every year there seems to be less money in the budget to buy holiday gifts. I now only buy gifts for my immediate family. Buying a single gift for a family usually means getting them something like a game or a treat they can share. But even that is getting expensive. Anything with chocolate or sugar in it has drastically increased in price in the last few years. Amazon has to be one of the worst places to shop for gifts because of all their 3rd party resellers. Walmart isn’t much better, but their prices can be lower on certain items. You can often get better deals if you go directly to a manufacturer’s website. Fruit cakes and cookies can be more expensive unless you buy directly from the manufacturer. But this isn’t always the case. The gourmet licorice maker Wally Wallaby charges $5.99 for a 10 oz. bag that you can get for under $4 at Target or Walmart.
If we want inflation to stop and prices to fall, we need to stop buying stuff we don’t need. Unfortunately, when people are forced to do this, we start hearing about mass laid offs and homes and cars getting repossessed. This is the environment that we are rapidly approaching. Retail investors have been hit hard this year. When the stock market is down people don’t feel as wealthy and start to reduce their spending. Some of us have already reduced our spending, which makes any money lost in the stock market that much more painful. The only cure for a poor economy is time. When interest rates were near 0% from 2008 to 2022 the only way to make any money was by investing in stocks and bonds. Fourteen years is a long time to be near 0% interest. Now the game has changed and investing in stocks and bonds will be a challenge in the coming years.
Buying stuff we don’t need is always difficult during the holidays. We all want to buy something special for our loved ones in an attempt to make them happy. That usually means spending more than we had planned. placing strict limits on holiday spending means that not everyone is going to be satisfied with your effort. Adults may not be concerned about it, but children may. It all just adds more stress to the holiday season. It shouldn’t be that way, but holiday advertising has created an expectation that not everyone can achieve. I wouldn’t be surprised if retail stores show a major reduction in spending by consumers this holiday season. If not, maybe it’s just me who is on a financial island that is getting noticeably smaller with each passing day.