If my various timelines are to be believed, Black Friday is officially next week.
Retailers are running their marketing departments ragged, now that spending season is back. They want you online and in stores, wallets open! You are the prey and their inventory is the bait. They want your money and they want it bad. The question you have to ask yourself is: do you want your money more than they do?
You’ll note that there won’t be any Black Friday sales on your rent/mortgage, your transportation costs, your utilities, your credit card bills, or your other debts. Nope! Those expenses are fixed, and no one’s giving you a break on those.
However, the sales will be on the want-to-have’s, the nice-to-have’s, the things you think you need to Keep Up With the Joneses! And I’m not claiming to be a saint in this arena. For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been debating whether to buy myself a Danish dough whisk. I’d never heard of it until I saw it being used by someone on YouTube. I own a stand mixer, a hand mixer, several other whisks, and a dozen forks. On a scale of 1 to 10, my need for a Danish dough whisk falls at -2. Yet… if I get a good enough Black Friday “deal”, I just might buy myself one.
And the retailers are collectively betting that enough of us consumers will go wild next Friday because everything will be on sale, so why not?
It’s your money so you do whatever you think will make you happiest. I’m not here to stop you from spending your money. You earned it so you get to decide where it goes.
What I am going to do is ask you if you’ve really thought about why you’ll be spending money next Friday. Is it because you’ve waited all year and this is your treat to yourself? Maybe you’ve priced out everything for those one your Christmas list, the prices really will be cheaper next Friday, and you’ll save money? Or is it that shopping on Black Friday is a family-and-friends tradition that you missed out on in 2020 due to COVID-19? Could it be that you’re one of the very luck ones for whom money is no object so you’re free to spend with abandon?
In you’re inclined to start shopping, you should ask yourself if the shopping gets your closer to or further from your long-term financial goals. Will shopping next week help you make your dreams come true? You work so hard for your money that it would be a shame for you to fritter it away on stuff. Do not spend just for spending’s sake.
Way back in pre-pandemic times, the last 5 weeks of the year were a flurry of spending. There may have been travel, whether by plane, bus, car or train. Nearly always, there was entertaining – hosting parties or attending them. Delicious holiday food was everywhere! And the opportunities to shop were endless. After all, Black Friday was quickly followed by Cyber Monday – another day devoted to plucking the dollars from your wallet.
I anticipate that the last few weeks of 2021 are going to more closely resemble life before COVID-19. People want to get back to normal, and that’s understandable. This pandemic has been awful, for any number of reasons! We all want it in the rearview mirror as fast as possible. Personally, I don’t think it’s wise to revive bad spending habits that may have been curtailed in 2020.
Yet, I’m going to urge you to consider exercising a bit more restraint in respect of your spending this year. Do you really need to derail your long-term financial goals to show love to your family and friends? Might there be a way to enjoy the holidays without spending a ton of money? Will the few moments of novelty be worth the credit card bills that will inevitably arrive?
Spending season is back, but you need not be its victim. Determine how much you have to spend. Make a list of where you want to spend your money. Stick to you list. Enjoy your time with family and friends, but don’t undermine your life’s dreams to do so.