On CNN today, I heard Suze Orman answer the following question: "We have no money and considerable credit card debt. Should we dip into our paltry emergency fund to pay for Christmas for the kids?"What a sad commentary on our culture. No, you should not spend money you might need for food on a transformer. How do we live in a society where this is even a question?
What are you doing differently for Christmas this year? We're making presents for our friends. Julie has some sort of aperitif macerating in a big jar in the closet, and we're going to be more frugal than usual on buying for our kids, though we're not quite sure how that's going to play out specifically. We've always had a pretty ascetic attitude toward Christmas gifts for our kids, because the orgy of gift-giving that constitutes the standard American Christmas is pretty sick-making. But this year we're going to cut back even more. We'll probably tell the kids that Santa's toy factory got foreclosed on. Nothing but an orange and some jacks for you, kids!
Seriously, what are you doing differently this year regarding Christmas gifts because of the economy?
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This year, I'll see if the family would like to do donations instead of gifts - we've done this in years past, and everyone always seems relieved that all they need to do is write a check to their favorite charity, and it has freed us up to just enjoy the holiday on its own merits, without the scramble of gift buying.
For those outside my family, I've scaled back on how many people I'm getting gifts for, and those who are getting gifts will either get homemade baked goods, homemade caramels, or a homemade CD compilation of Christmas songs. I would be surprised if my entire outlay is more than $200 (which includes the cost of stamps and cards for mailing Christmas cards) this year. Most likely I'll be under that amount.
That said, I rarely go over $300 on Christmas cards and gifts. I've never thought it made much sense to spend like crazy on that.
I recently blogged on just this question. Here's my four step proposal:
(1) Make a Christmas gift budget.
(2) Divide the total amount of the budget into thirds.
(3) Put one third in savings, give one third to charity (including to friends or neighbors whom you know are struggling), spend the remaining third on gifts. That's right, reduce your Christmas gift spending by 2/3.
(4) Let others know that you're doing this, in order to alter expectations.
A lengthier version of this proposal is at my blog: therespondent.blogspot.com
i'm jewish so all of this applies to hanukah. If anything I might spend a little more than usual. My salary is not suffering and I now feel like it is actually a good thing to help support the retail sector. Since I've saved plenty I can always be frugal if I get laid off.
Normally I make donations on behalf of various family members to National Review, The Weekly Standard, The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Heritage Foundation, and American Enterprise Institute for the holidays.
Not this year. Instead, I'll send each copies of the Bible, Shakespeare, and the collective works of Rand and Friedman.
Old Susan, glad to read of your travels abroad. May I suggest that you bring along your own staff on the trip? Finding a competent butler, maid, chauffeur, chef, masseur, and houseboy can be quite quite odious these days in Europe. After all, the Continent is now awash in all those foreigners. Make your staff pay, of course, for their air travel, lodging, and food. But be sure to bring them along and thus relieve yourself of all the unnecessary stress and strain of travel with inefficient temporary help.
Nothing different. We did this last year also. My wife and I buy each other a single book, then we adopt a refugee family through hrionline.org, the Group that I take Asylum cases from. We already got our list for the refugee family of four.
Then, we buy goats, chickens through heiffer international for our family and close friends. None of us need more things.
In addition, I write my wife a poem about the things that happened this year. It's really manged the chaos of the season.
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