Spend more because everything is more expensive? I can’t imagine taking on debt for a gift. I’d just say sorry, I don’t have enough money right now for non-essentials. Maybe cook up some food to share instead.
this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
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This year, holiday spending between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31 is expected to increase to a record total of $979.5 billion to $989 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.
Even as credit card debt tops $1.14 trillion, holiday shoppers expect to spend, on average, $1,778, up 8% compared to last year, Deloitte’s holiday retail survey found.
Meanwhile, 28% of holiday shoppers still have not paid off the gifts they purchased for their loved ones last year, according to another holiday spending report by NerdWallet.
No way I'm paying the bank 28% interest to buy Christmas presents. That's completely asinine.
People are using Klarna for groceries now.
We're either gonna have some kind of massive consumer debt jubilee, or basically the gap between rich and poor will accelerate even faster, and the way our society handles those with terrible credit scores is to basically keep them on 100 knives' edges where if enough slip, basically you become homeless and die.
Somewhere between a quarter and a third of Americans have a negative net worth, but we've gotta keep up conspicuous consumption or else we'd seem poor and gross.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/net-worth-25-americans-theirs-190123144.html?guccounter=1
https://www.creditkarma.com/about/commentary/americans-have-a-net-worth-problem-and-its-not-positive
We are waaay past the nation needing student debt relief, we legitimately need a mass debt write off, a debt jubilee of all kinds of debt, if we want to avoid just literally becoming a stratified society of indentured servitude with extra steps.
Of course, doing that would make a lot of very wealthy people fractionally less wealthy in the short term, whilst ultimately laying the groundwork for a much more stable and prosperous economy and society in the medium and longterm... so this will probably never happen.
More blood for the blood god.
I quit doing Christmas a dozen years ago, and I've never been happier. I'm an anti-capitalistic athiest...I don't give a Fuck One about keeping Jeebus in Crimmis, and I am just not real big on spending hundreds of dollars buying things for people that I think they might like (but probably won't) just because it happens to be the fourth week of December again. That shit's bonkers and is for the fucking birds.
Hell naw. You keep your $40 and buy yourself something you want or need, I'll do the same, and you and I will just moosh calendars and share time and a meal together without propping up capitalism.