Black Friday
Will you be one of the many that rushes out to the malls the day after Thanksgiving in search of amazing deals? I for one will not be joining you. From the sounds of the news these days, it looks like I will not be the only one making this decision this year. I will add though that I have never gone to the malls the day after Thanksgiving. Fighting the masses for a couple extra dollars off just doesn’t seem worth it to me.
Many stores are viewing this holiday season as one that will make or break them. I would be on the lookout for some bad earnings from the retail sector in comparison to previous years. Roughly guesstimating, I would assume that I will spend about 20% less on Christmas this year. I am managing to do this by spending less on a per person basis. I am making up for this by buying more smaller things that are typically lower priced. In the past I had bought a few more expensive items. I am hoping that this strategy will save me some money this year. According to my Microsoft Money data from last year, I spent $696.30 on gifts between 10/01/2007 and 12/31/2007. For the entire year 2007, I spent $904.33 on gifts. 20% less would put me at $557.04 for the holiday months. As of now I have spent $217.30. I will try to keep a running total of my holiday spending for the year. I think it will be frightening to find out how much I spend.To date I have spent $1,234.65 on gifts for 2008. This puts me on pace for spending $1,363.42 for the year. My total ballooned from last year because both of my parents turned 50 this year. Because of this, I got them much more expensive gifts than I normally would have.
Maybe this is me, but this seems like an extraordinate amount to have spent on gifts for a given year. I know that it is better to give than receive, but still.
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