Spending Trends: Holidays 2008
September 23, 2008 by Miranda Marquit
Filed under Finance
Because it’s September, I’ve been seeing some Christmas stuff slowly appearing in stores. Sure the Halloween decorations are more plentiful (no Thanksgiving items, though), but all the black and orange can’t hide the red and green just a few shelves down.
And retailers may need all that Christmas gear out early this year because they need more time to sell it. According to the National Retail Federation, this year is expected to be the worst holiday performance in six years. BloggingStocks explains why:
These experts are right. It will be much worse. Retail sales are likely to drop compared with last year. Unemployment stood at 6.1% according to the most recent measurement. If layoffs at big companies continue, that number could be 7% in the next month or two. With Wall Street firings a lot of job loss is at the high end of the economy where people tend to really spread around the cash during the holidays.
I know we’re cutting back on the holiday spending. Just last night my husband turned to me, sighed, and said, “I think we’re not going to be able to spend as much on gifts this year.”
I agreed.
And not just because we want to put in a yard next summer. Our household budget has been depleted a bit by the rising costs of food and energy. While we do our best to live frugally, there is no getting around the fact that the bread that cost $2.35 a couple of months ago now costs $4.20.
As for gas prices — I was thrilled yesterday to find that we *only* spent $32 (we refill at a little more than half a tank). How easy it is for us to adjust to the current market conditions. Just a little over a month ago, we were spending more than $40 for the same amount of gas. Of course, compared with this time last year, things appear a little out of hand.
The bottom line, though, is that we just can’t afford to do the same sort of holiday shopping we did last year. So we won’t.
Will you be spending less on holiday shopping this year?
image source: sxc.hu
I was in Costco two weeks ago and noticed the Christmas decorations and even some toys starting to appear. They always have some toys but they had more inventory compared to 2007. Seeing decorations and it’s still 100 outside is crazy.
I agree with you there! Most of us aren’t even ready to think about Christmas yet!
this Christmas people will be giving gas cards and grocery store gift cards . Also expect a gigantic lashback from the war on Christmas crowd . I see a very blue Christmas this year – I know that I will be cutting back greatly and buying fewer and more practical gifts
Thanks for sharing, Alison! I agree that practical gifts will probably be the trend this holiday season. After all, we all want to help our loved ones.
Great ideas Alison! I haven’t gotten so far as to think about Christmas yet (I am struggling with Halloween!). The gas card and food gift cards are a terrific idea and very practical as you can easily mail them to friends or family with a card and a first class stamp…helps the USPS this way also…I will try to do some local retail stimulus with the non-chain stores just to help with the economy, but like everyone else….it is too tight in my household for a lot of frivolous gifts.
Thank you for weighing Juanita. It looks like things are tight all around this year.