Holiday Spending 2020

This year, the holidays will most likely look a little different that most other years. Big office parties probably won’t be a thing. Multiple Thanksgiving gatherings around town — also probably not going to happen. But giving thanks over a turkey dinner, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, mistletoe, hams, and tree decorations… we will find a way to celebrate the holidays — just in smaller groups most likely.  

Black Friday is just around the corner too, and massive runs on large stores will mostly be a phantom occurrence this year. Online shopping could well replace the activity almost entirely. That opens the discussion up to a few options — will small businesses without an online store suffer to the point of disaster this year? And will e-commerce businesses boom this year because of the shift?

Either way, it’s always tempting to take advantage of specials being offered on purchases this time of year. However, without a healthy monitoring of your spending and credit card activity, there are some costly blunders that can be made, and if you’re holding the purse strings tightly, then this is definitely something to watch for.

Consumers plan to spend close to $1000 — or about $50 less than previous years — on gifts, holiday items like food and decorations, and additional “non-gift” purchases for themselves and their families this year, according to a National Retail Federation survey.

On average, Americans usually travel about 300 miles (most likely to be with family over the holidays). But that is unlikely to be something we see this year, and instead we might see a lot more virtual holiday gatherings, with dinners shared on Zoom or Skype or FaceTime.

So, while we might save a bit here and there, we still should be vigilant with regard to our spending as stores will often have special store credit cards with deferred interest. The offer might seem attractive for large purchases, but the entire amount has to be paid off before the end of the advertised “zero interest” period. Even if you only owe one penny at the end of that time, you will be charged the full interest for the whole introductory period. 

Another thing to keep a close eye on is digital thievery. Technology has outgrown the pickpocket in the mall. Nowadays we need to be especially wary of cyber thieves looking to take advantage of our spike in credit card usage during this time. Throughout North America, there have been escalated reports of fraudulent online stores and fake shopping apps being created, just waiting for people to find them and type in their credit card information. So be careful.

 

 

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