Black Friday, Blue Christmas

We are spending less this year on Christmas. This is the first year we are drawing names out of a hat. This will help eliminate the stress of buying for everyone. We are trying to focus on what we need and making a list.
Supporting the economy is important. Along with bailing out U.S. Auto makers and Banks, a bitter pill to swallow but maybe required to get the economy back on track.
Why not Rebuild New Orleans? Give low interest loans to people who want to rebuild. Create Jobs rebuilding a community. Win! Win! Delay payment to stimulate quick recovery.
Texas needs to rebuild the hurricane ravaged coast. Rebuild with hurricane resistant building. Create jobs!

Support low cost education online. Require Government supported collage to supply online courses. Too many kids are over their heads in loans for higher education. Some how we need to fix that.

This year we will spend very little, giving cash only instead of buying gifts, this way we spend way less. Can’t afford it not knowing what’s ahead for us. Everything costs more.

The government has already spent all my wages until I die broke. 6 trillion dollars if you make the half of Americans that make less than $32,000 a year to pay it off and the 12 trillion national debt you are looking at over 10 years of just paying off the money.

WOW we still have to buy food, gas and shelter I guess they will relax the nudist laws so we don’t have to buy clothes. That must be Bush’s and Paulson great plan to save the economy.

We have already spent more this holiday season than we ever have before. Our money situation has actually gotten better. We bought 2 Garmin Nuvi’s, an X Box and components to upgrade 3 computers so that they can kick butt on the PC games. Our college daughter needs one of those Garmins. Each of our 3 sons will now have a fast gaming computer and I already have a smoking Quad core computer. We are also buying a number of other gifts. We are able to do this even though we have had some unexpected auto expenses. So I am grateful for our blessings this year.

I hope to spend less this Christmas, as I try to do every year going forward. My children are growing up and they don’t need a lot of the useless and disposable junk that they sought in the past. I for one, need nothing nor want for anything. So long as I have a roof over my head, a warm meal, and my family close, there is nothing anybody has to spend on me to make me happy. In fact, I prefer that I get no gifts for Christmas as it is far more pleasurable for me to watch others open their gifts.

Unfortunately, I fear that we as a culture have been brainwashed (quite effectively) that the whole reason for this season is to just spend, spend, spend. The problem of course being that most people are strapped already but they can’t stop that uncontrollable urge to keep spending. The government and the media don’t help any because all they do is keep pumping up the volume to borrow, borrow, borrow and spend, spend, spend.

Isn’t it absolutely ridiculous that the Federal government is doing absolutely everything in it’s power (and then some) to get borrowing to pick up WHEN it was borrowing that got this country into the RECESSION that it is now deeply embedded in?

We are a nation of debtors. We are debt bound and bankrupt. There is absolutely no way out of this debt cycle, at this point. Our whole economy is built on debt and the debt volcano has erupted (or ruptured). We’re screwed for the foreseeable future.

Of course, here come the Democrats with a new plan to drive us deeper into debt with an enormous financial rescue package (hopefully ready in time for Obama to sign when he takes office) that will saddle our nation’s citizens with crushing debt and taxes for the next 3 to 5 generations.

WE ARE SCREWED, ROYAL.

Spending less, re-gifting, exchanging clothes after cleaning out the closet, and giving to charities. My family is choosing to be good stewards of the environment by no purchasing crap that costs petroleum to make, and will eventually end up in a landfill – oh and it saves money too!

Two paragraphs in your article are a microcosm of what this “recession” really is–an “adjustment” back to reality for people who created wealth from air, over-inflated the prices of anything they could sell, convinced others to live beyond their means, and, of course, did so themselves. Eric Beder, who tracks the stores that sell exceptionally over-priced items to the social status hounds reports nothing but bad news this Holiday season. Daniel Binder, who tracks the discount chains trying to give their Customers the best value for their hard-earned cash, recounts what most of us down here (on earth) living with our means keep asking ourselves curiously (like the old RCA dog)–”What recession?”

I have lived within my means and, even after taking an over 25% hit in net assets since June 2008, have plenty of cash left over to spend even more than last year on my family, friends and favorite charities. I want to see every store that sells $2,000 handbags, $300 sneakers, $150 blue jeans and $5 cups of coffee (all but the coffee made in China or Vietnam), or every broker selling a 2,000 sf house for $950,000 to max-out their commission, go out of business promptly and terminally so that we can get back to a true value-based vice highly speculative economy.

With what the so-called consumer “averaged” this past weekend, just over $372, my wife bought gifts for everyone in our family, including my son’s teacher, our three children myself, her mother, my mother, etc. We did not spend 1 dime this past weekend, including “Black Friday.” Frugality is the word of the day. I agree with the posters who have said that the true meaning of Christmas will be learned by more this year. Go volunteer, make somone else’s day brighter. You will quickly see that many others in your communities are worse off than you. It’s not the number of gifts you get that measure your value, but the quality of the thought that goes into getting them. Give of yourself and get 10 times back, there is no greater reward.

THIS is the root of the problem in our economy. Everyone has lost touch with the real meaning of Christmas. Number one: Celebrate Christ, number two: Spend time with those we love. Instead, we have developed an epedemic of greed and indulgence with our buy now pay later, instant gratification mentality. It’s time we learn from a past generation that taught children that it’s ok not to get everything they want on Christmas or anytime! It’s ok to save to buy the things we want instead of feeding the corporate beast that everybody loves to complain about while paying them interest to get fatter. We need to WAKE UP!

I’m going to spend so much I will get the economy moving again on my own. I may lose my job and house tomorrow..but I refuse to cower in a corner crying whoa is me.

I am a blackfriday fan, but this year i skipped it all together, i just bought an external hd from costco via a friend. I did not even go to the warehouse. Thats it and nothing else. there were no deals that i liked and i saved all my money for paying the mortagage even though i am in excellent financial shape now.

Gifts? What gifts? My family is still paying off last month’s utility bills and mortgage. If we can scrape any money up for gifts, it’ll most likely be post-holiday madness.

Our extended family this years made a pact not to spend money. Only gifts of service (I wash windows, I’ve got it covered) or hand made. Even the elderly Aunt who always gave money to charities in our names, (and who we were going to let out of the rule but she doesn’t give up that easy) has 20 hours at the food bank and 2 blood donations under her belt so far.

And guess what? Christmas looks likely to be one of the best ever. Gifts of love, skill, work, effort, is there better? You could probably write a short book with the heartwarming life lessons we are all getting. We will spend more time around the tree this year talking about the roads we took to get the gifts then opening them.

Blessed be.

I had another thought after reading the other posts, the Grinch once stole Christmas, but what did he learn?

“They’re finding out now that no Christmas is coming. They’re just waking up, I know just what they’ll do. Their mouths will hang open a minute or two, then the Whos down in Whoville will all cry, “Boo Hoo.’
But NO that is not what happen in Whoville that Christmas morn, all the citizens of Whoville joined hands and sang praises for Christmas. This confused the Grinch?
“It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!
You see Christmas is more than a consumer spending holiday, I hope that everyone finds the true meaning of this Holiday, we certainly need it.

Last year I proposed to our family that we postpone Christmas until the third Sunday of January.
This does reduce a large amount of stress in the family. Since both my wife’s job and my job expect no less than twenty hours a day to end the 4 th quarter strong in our sales positions, there is just no time to shop.
We found that by delaying the holiday to be the best path, you save so much when you can buy in the next month. prices are lower, and for a tree we can just wait for our neighbors to throw out the one they used.
We will strive for nothing store bought when at all possible, and stick with required items like socks and underware. No plasma TVs, computers, auto etc. in our life.
I myself through December will concentrate on donating food to the food banks so others can eat. There is so much starvation in our community that spending on myself or the family seems to be of no urgency.
I do not remember when it was our responsibility to be consumers, before we are compassionate humans.
I will still spend less, because I have less, my biggest charity is my NYS and Federal taxes, which demands more than half of our gross earnings.

We will both make gifts and give to charities in others names, and that’s it. There are too many people having a hard time this year to be silly enough to worry about giving or getting stuff.

people who have a job will spend more. that is what americans do. they spend beyond their means. people who have lost their jobs will spend alot less. Americans have been taught to spend, and usually beyond their means, and that will not change this holiday season. especailly with the great deals all the stores are offering.
gas has come down, oil has come down, etc. giving us some extra money in our pockets to spend shopping

Black Friday is a joke. Alot of dummies running around for junk that was cheaper the week before. They do this to make thier 410k’s look better?? Was thier fozen dinners cooked? Do they hate spending time with thier faimlies? Did they have nothing better to do than look for restrooms? Dum, they will be broke in Jan. What I did was simple, I took out a catalog in the middel of Nov. Asked people in my faimly and myself is this what I want? Then odered, done! “Stop spending on unneed things!”

Will we spend less this Christmas? Absolutely. With the gas prices being what they were, grocery items pricing going through the roof, utility rates jumping and basic goods and services costing more, you can believe that Christmas spending will be much less. Our extended family ‘drew names’ this year at Thanksgiving, rather than purchase gifts for every member. Only a fool will not take this economic recession seriously and you know what they say about a fool and his money.

All but a few of our holiday gifts for this year were purchased last year when items went 75-90% off. With only a few gifts to get this year we’ll have more cash in our pockets. And the gifts we need to get (4 total) will be purchased at 50% or more off.

Black Friday, Blue Christmas

I would hope consumers are being smart, because they should know all to well that the bottom of this economy mess isn’t coming to a end soon.

I’ll probably spend a little bit less since I’m not going to buy gifts for my financial advisers.

There is little to spend and no credit to borrow. I represent a huge number of the wounded middle class. We are all trying to hang onto jobs if we’ve not already lost them. The holidays seem almost to be mocking, coming at this barren point in the life of this country…

I will spend about the same on gifts. As it turns out I will get more for that money than last year so it’s like spending more. Of course, I still have a job and will likely get a reasonable bonus.

I will cut back on christmas spending the most in my life and I was never a big spender anyway. People have lost track of christmas, it means nothing other than blowing money. IMO christmas sucks because of this!

All my gifts will be bought from Dec 26th through Dec 30th when they are a little cheaper and the stores are less crowded. Those who recieve my gifts will just have to be patient. I don’t mind if they do the same with my gifts if it makes more financial sense during these times. Good Luck all!!!