Today I want to talk about all those special events that come up throughout the year. I’m talking Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother Day, Fathers Day, Birthdays, Easter, and more.
SwiftMoney found that 52% of women ‘Occasionally’ or ‘Always’ save money for gifts, compared to 63% of men who ‘Never’ or ‘Rarely’ save.
68% of people also said that there are societal pressures (and this is probably influenced by excellent marketing and advertising campaigns) to buy more for these types of calendar events than they would like to.
At Christmas, food and drink is the most popular gift (38%), followed closely by wearables including clothes, perfume, and jewellery (28%) and then gadgets (also 28%). I would definitely tend to agree with these statistics, based on what I’ve seen and my shopping habits.
Personally, I’m the type of person who regularly loses track of time, and then panics when I realise how close I am to missing out on getting the gifts I need. I’ve often been that crazy person running through the mall on Christmas Eve (with all the other crazy people), hoping that I can find that perfect gift at the eleventh hour. And, of course, I’ve also failed to save enough that I can justify all those last-minute purchases.
I don’t quite know why I’m so unorganised when it comes to these sorts of things. My mum would begin buying gifts from “Santa” in February, and would grab things as they went on sale or as she spotted them throughout the year. She was always super organised, and by the time December arrived, she would only need to grab a few last-minute things and then do her wrapping.
I’m the opposite. I live in complete denial that the holidays are around the corner until they actually hit. Each year, I vow to be better, and of course, I’ve vowed the same this year. I’m actually going to be going home for Christmas this year (for the first time in years), so I’ll need to buy my gifts in Europe before I leave. This should actually be a great opportunity for me to go to the Christmas markets here and get some unique gifts, but I definitely won’t be leaving it until the last minute.
One of the reasons why last-minute shopping is such a poor choice, is because we often end up putting all those gifts on our credit cards. If you’re like many people, you may be used to that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as you realise that your credit card bill is going to be completely out of control in January. Is there anything more depressing than going back to work after the holidays when you’re completely broke, you’ve eaten too much, and your credit card got more of a workout than you did?
I definitely agree that there’s much more pressure to buy more for each of these events, which is often why we tend to go overboard with our #OccassionalSpending. We all want to keep up with each other on social media, but most of us fail to save enough to justify our shopping habits.
