Last week I pondered the question of How’s Your Christmas Budgeting Going? We all know that Christmas can be a highly expensive time of year. It is all too easy to put yourself into debt, that will take much of the next year to pay. Once Christmas is over, though, you are likely to be tempted by the Boxing Day Sales.
The Boxing Day Sales can be something of a double-edged sword. While they give opportunities to buy things at bargain prices, they also lead to unnecessary spending temptation. This can be a problem if you are trying to keep to a sensible budget.
Boxing Day is One of the Greatest Shopping Days of the Year
According to ShopperTrak’s Holiday Shopping Prediction, Boxing Day was supposed to be the fourth busiest shopping day of the year (after Black Friday, Dec 23, and Dec 16).
2017 is a little odd because Christmas Eve is on a Sunday, so it was not as important a shopping day as it is in most years. Indeed New Zealand retailers have already complained that Christmas Eve was a shopping fizzer compared to usual.
In recent years, however, Boxing Days, and the days immediately after, have become critical to retailers. It gives them the opportunity to get rid of any excessive stock not sold before Christmas. It also provides a chance for people who received vouchers or cash for Christmas to do some spending.
If You Want to Reinvent Your Life, You Need to Manage Your Finances
Going on a spending spree on Boxing Day can be tempting. You see cheap sales everywhere. In some cases, the savings can be colossal.
But if you are trying to improve your life you should hold back and think before you buy. If you want to reinvent your life to be better than it was in the past, you do need to be prudent in your spending. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun and save yourself a fortune, but it does indicate you need to think about your spending before you release your credit or debit card.
Visualise your life over the next year. How do you want it to go? Do you want to make a change from the life you’re currently living?
Are there items that you could buy on special at the Boxing Day Sales that will help your reinvention? Can you afford them now? Is the saving offered in the Boxing Day sales worth the effort and possible cash flow shortages to make it worth buying now, rather than waiting until later in the year?
These are the sorts of questions you should ask yourself.
If you have a goal of having a better, more sociable Christmas next year than the one just gone, than the Boxing Day sales may be the perfect time to start buying things for next Christmas – you will never get them cheaper.
And if you are spending vouchers or cash you received as a Christmas present, it makes sense that you sue them to buy something you really want – as this year’s present.
But it makes no sense at all going shopping and spending at the Boxing Day Sales just because things are cheap. You need to have a reason to spend money, and that reason should be something that will enhance your reinvention over the next year.