As if you didn't know...
Well, we saw it coming months ago; With the economy in near depression and inflation threatening to make a bad winter even worse, for the past few months, retailers have been shoving holiday sales down our throats in hopes of turning some kind of profit before year's end. The early Christmas push has been getting worse and worse each year. Just last year, I was joking with my wife that before you know it, they'll be advertising for Christmas the day after July 4th! Trust me folks, you didn't need to be Nostradamus to figure that out. However, unlike previous years, I don't think retail holiday greed is solely to blame this time around. Like us on the consumer end, I believe retailers are pulling out all the stops in hopes of just surviving this horrible recession.
While prices are being slashed for the holidays to just above wholesale on most of the unnecessary garbage people feel the need to clutter their lives with, prices on everything considered to be necessities are going through the roof!!! Food, common household items and hygiene products have gotten way more expensive. Just about everything in the grocery store has either gone up in price or manufacturers are reducing weights and/or quantities in products in order to keep prices the same. The price of gas is back up over $3.00 a gallon and I'm sure heating oil and electricity increases will follow, especially if we suffer a cold winter. On average, it costs me an extra 10 dollars more to fill my Jeep's gas tank than it did just six months ago. Health insurance costs have become unaffordable (yeah, I know, don't get me started on that). Taxes and government service fees like DMV costs feel like they've doubled over the past couple of year. The real estate market is still extremely stagnant and unemployment is at levels I haven't seen since the Jimmy Carter days. Yet, they still won't call this a RECESSION?!?! But, I digress.
Despite all those economic woes, an increase in consumer turnout at some stores appears to be a prediction of good fourth quarter earnings. But should that be taken as concrete proof that the economy is on the upswing? Likely not. Everyone I've talked to tells me how much harder their families are struggling than they were this time last year. They're traveling less, shopping only when stores offer big sales, reducing their monthly expenses to a bare minimum and even clipping coupons to save money on groceries - something many claim they've never done in the past.
Many also tell me that they've even been preparing their children for the holidays this year by telling them not to expect a lot of stuff for Christmas. And while that may not bode well for the retail sector, it does give me some hope to know that folks are shedding some of the excess materialism that comes with Christmas and Hanukkah. Hopefully there will be more focus on the real meaning of the holidays and not be so reliant on gift wrapped presents to make the seasons bright. Speaking for my family, our kids only get a couple of toys each along with some new clothing, games (non-electronic) and books. I don't know about folks, but we just can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a bunch of crap that gets played with for a couple of weeks and then tossed in a closet where it sits for the next several years until it becomes yard sale fodder.
Economic conditions not withstanding, Christmas is supposed to be, first and foremost, about celebrating the birth of Christ and Hanukkah is supposed to be a remembrance of Jewish perseverance and victory over their enemies. More generally speaking, the holiday season is supposed to be about friends and family, charity and compassion, peace and good will. Regardless if we can afford to spend large amounts of money to make ourselves and others around us happy, we should all focus more on what really is most important, because even though your financial situation appears stable at present, everything can change in the blink of an eye and it is times like those that we rely on friends and family to help us survive the new year.
There will always be a segment of society that continues to enjoy economic prosperity, but in this economy, How long do you think that will last? I believe the vast majority of us are hanging on by a thread, living paycheck to paycheck, pinching pennies, tightening their belts, and hunkering down for a long, dark, cold, and frugal winter.
No comments:
Post a Comment