The holiday season is fast approaching.
This is the time of year when everyone from your grandma to your favorite news anchor is talking about…
Spending.
Not what you thought I was going to say, was it?
It almost goes without saying that when it comes to a celebration, there is usually some kind of monetary exchange happening.
There’s also this righteous condemnation that happens this time of year.
And I don’t have any time for that.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you espouse budgeting all year and then blast people for shopping on Black Friday, you are missing the point.
RELATED POST: What Black Friday Critics Miss
My Twitter feed is already starting to fill up with reminders that others need to do better or people apologizing for–GASP!–intending to spend money this year.
Repeat after me. You don’t owe anyone an apology for how you spend your money. It’s your money. It’s your season. How you spend is between you and your spreadsheet.
Shame is not a money principle. At least it isn’t in my book blog.
Instead of telling you what to save or spend this season, I want to celebrate. More specifically, I want to celebrate you.
Maybe you found a great promo on fried onions (Three cheers for less money judgment and more green bean casserole!). Maybe you got your family to switch from buying gifts for everyone and moved to a grab bag system. Maybe the holidays aren’t your thing and you are travel hacking your way to Bermuda over winter break.
However you’re winning with money this holiday season, I want to hear about it. Big, small, or in between. Let’s make things merry and bright, let’s and talk about money with excitement and not an ounce of shame.
Fill out this short money wins survey, and we’ll kick things off next Friday and celebrate all the way until the new year.
If you need a little inspiration to get the money win wheel turning, check out these holiday spending statistics:
- The average American spent $67.59 on Thanksgiving travel and $97.55 on other Thanksgiving costs, according to a 2017 LendEDU survey.
- Almost $8 billion in online shopping happened over the last Black Friday weekend, and 40% of that was done via mobile phone.
- Consumers say they will spend an average of $1,007.24 for the 2018 holiday season, based on a NRF survey.
- Rebate apps continue to grow in popularity, and there are 12 million Ibotta users currently who have earned about $200 million in rebates!
- 55% of shoppers use debit cards to make holiday purchases.
Whether you find ways to spend less or maybe even spend more (Team Purposeful Spending over here!), I know you’re going to do something with your wallet this season that we can celebrate.
Click it now or bookmark the survey later — but if you’ve got money wins this holiday season, let’s flaunt ‘em!
PSST – If you need a little inspiration, check out the entire money wins series!
Penny I just love you and your positivity so much.. why can’t all the world be as wonderful as you. 😉
Thank you so much for sharing! I’m excited to feature your win!
We plan to spend gobs of money this holiday season. 🙂 The kicker is that we use our credit card cashback rewards to pay for all of these gifts. Starting in November of every year, we tally our rewards points, divide them by the total amount of gift recipients, and set a per person gift budget.
The result is a zero budget impact from Christmas and we’re able to give generously without worry. 🙂
Yes! I generally try to do this (except for the one December when we went to Vegas on that money instead LOL). This year, I saved all my “app money” too. I’m excited to add it up and see where we get.
You know I’m going to bug you to put this in the Google Form so I can share it properly 😉
Your perspective is so refreshing, Penny! For casa Tiny Ambitions, we don’t spend a lot of money on gifts, but we spend a heck of a lot on travel and hotels and AirBnbs to be near our families over the holidays.
Yes! And when I was combing through the “ghastly” holiday spending numbers, a lot of that IS included. I don’t know why I have to apologize for bringing pie and wine to Thanksgiving dinner and putting gas in the car to get there and back. It’s in my budget, I swear! 😉
As someone who has done Buy Nothing Day almost every year for over 20 years, your thoughts on it are really interesting (That sounds kind of condescending, which is not how I intend it!). I think ideally it shouldn’t be about shaming anyone for their financial decisions or forcing people to participate, particularly people who are struggling financially and benefit from the good deals on the day. For me, I think it ideally ties into the popular PF/FI principles of being mindful with your spending and recognizing the limits of material things for creating happiness. I choose to do it most years (as long as I remember) as a way of reflecting on my spending habits and on the things that are most important to me during the holiday season.
(I wrote a post about it last year…which basically uses more words to say what I said here! http://solitarydiner.blogspot.com/2017/11/looking-ahead-to-buy-nothing-day.html)
Thanks for the link! I’m headed there now.
My first year of blogging, I got really caught up in passing judgment on my Black Friday friends. But then I realized that wasn’t the point of me getting better with my money. I think we have a holiday plan that works well for us, but who am I to tell anyone how to celebrate and spend (or save)?
Really like your money motivation, we all can spend our money however we want. Doesn’t matter what others have to say about how to spend YOUR money. We like to provide tips on ways to save and all that but at the end of the day its your money, do what you like with it and hopefully you will be able to manage your spendings.
It’s so easy to forget that personal finance is personal. I was the queen of money judgements, and now I realize how foolish and utterly unhelpful I was!