Christmas – what an expensive time of year. Buying presents, buying special seasonal treats, decorating your home – even just heating your home – it adds up.
When I was a student in Montreal, my girlfriend (at the time) and I saved money one year by decorating a kitchen chair instead of a tree. We called it Christmas Chair and it stands out as one of my favourite “trees” ever.
But not this year. This year my family got the real deal and it didn’t cost us a thing – except for gas and lunch afterwards.
Last weekend my dad and I hiked up to the power lines in Pender Harbour and chopped us down a genuine, grade A (maybe B+) Christmas tree. And by “chopped down” I really mean dug out of the frozen ground with a spade because someone forgot to bring an axe.
It was a bit of a hike in and bit of pain in the Christmas cracker getting the tree back to the car – not to mention the same someone who forgot the axe also lost his keys in the snow while we were digging up the tree. But in the end it felt very rewarding.
Much more rewarding than spending $40 on a tree-farm tree bought in a parking lot across the street from Playland – Vancouver style. It felt rewarding because getting the tree was hard work.
I know, you work for money, money pays for things – but it’s not always easy to visualize how X amount of hours equals the product you’re purchasing. This often leads to buyers’ remorse – the feeling of regret that comes from spending money on something you don’t need, and in retrospect, don’t even really want.
The National Public Radio show Planet Money did a piece on the economy of gift giving a couple years ago and it really stuck with me. Basically, gift giving is bad for the economy.
Here’s the example they used: Let’s say you buy your friend a toaster for Christmas. But, unbeknownst to you, someone else bought them the same toaster from the same store. You did your part, you bought a gift and proved you cared, so you’re good. Your friend can either re-gift or return the toaster in January, so no problem for them. But, it’s not so good for the store because next Christmas they’re going to look at their books for December and say, we sold X number of toasters last year, let’s stock at least that many this year. Only they didn’t sell X number of toasters, they really sold Y number of toasters because they sold at least one too many.
This is one of those cases where one instance isn’t such a big deal, but multiply it by all the stores selling at least one too many products and then restocking at least one too many products and it adds up. In the end there’s a false sense of the needs of the consumer market.
Planet Money advocated giving money as gifts since it allows the recipient to buy whatever they want, but some find this a bit tacky. My advice is to just be more conscious of what you’re purchasing this Christmas. Is it worth the hours you worked for it? Does your friend or family member really want or need it? Or are you just going through the motions of showing you care by buying for the sake of buying?
