Balancing Holiday Shopping When Your Cart Is Off The Rails

As if the holidays were not stressful enough, this year, consumers are expected to put even more stress on themselves by pouring more love into our gift-giving. After all, for some families and friends, it has been almost two years since we’ve gotten together. According to a recent QuantumMetric study, 63% of participants agreed that they are more emotional about the holidays this year and intend to invest more time and effort to find the perfect gifts. In addition, the same study found that over 54% of participants planned to spend more this year than in previous years.

Dashing through the stores may return to some extent this year. Of course, many of us still enjoy seeing the decorations and listening to holiday music (but not in the car!). However, a trend fueled by the pandemic is online ordering. As a result, retailers expect double-digit online sales growth this year.

Supply chain and delivery delays have some people concerned and explain why Black Friday came early this year. If you are one of the rare creatures (part of my tribe) that still watch and listen to commercials, retailers have been advertising Black Friday deals for weeks.

Herein lies a tricky formula. More consumers are emotionally charged this season and making more of their purchases online. It’s tricky because, on average, we spend more shopping online than we do in-store. Online retailers are very clever by suggesting ‘you may also like’ or ‘free shipping with one more product or $50 more in your cart.’ The other factor is that we are not visualizing the purchases; when we are in-store, we see the cart overflowing or carrying the packages becomes too much, and we leave. Shopping online does not offer these tangible balances.

Balance is the key to life. But I’ll admit that I am one of the first to go out of balance especially when it comes to holiday snacks and hot chocolate enhancements. Luckily, this year I became a member at BHCU, Your Delaware County Credit Union.

They, too, are one of the companies that started their Black Friday promos early, but I am glad that they did. This year, I plan to take advantage of the money market rate special, free checking bonus, and debt cancelation special. As a member of the community, they care about my financial balance and health. I want to make sure that I can enjoy this holiday and many more to come. I hope that you can too.

Balance is not found. It is created. I am grateful that there are businesses within our community that can help me create balance and financial independence.

Happy Thanksgiving and cheers to a wonderful, balanced holiday season!