I know we are cutting WAAYYY back this year on the Christmas stuff and looking to re-gift things maybe we got before and never used and instead of a ton of toys for the kiddos, we are going to do a special trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Jan/Feb when they have good deals on pricing.

Keep seeing articles about how the whole notion of Black Friday seems to have fizzled out too.

Is The American Consumer Tapped Out?

It's fizzled out for the same reasons the American mall has fizzled out. You've never witnessed a more materialistic generation than this one, and that includes the Eisenhower nuclear family.

It's true. Look at these clowns. They're drowning in Chinese shit and they love it.

People are simply shopping online. The COVID nonsense merely accelerated matters.

^^^ Coupled with the "Keeping up with the Jones's" and social media:
"Ohhh, look, so-nso has this I MUST GET IT TO BE COOL!"

One thing that me and the wife have done is less restaurant eating.
Not talking about the lower cost fast food which we eliminated because of diet but the occasional nice meal out.
Even nicer burger and BBQ places, the prices are out of sight.
Nice sit-down places for special occasions we will just order less especially drinks.
Used to be able to take the wife out in a decent place with a drink or two for under $100.
No more.
Uber high-end anniversary/birthday places would be $200 maybe more if a nice bottle of wine but now >

Black Friday has been diluted to Thanksgiving week through Christmas eve. You can't have a "super" sale for that long and expect everyone to go full tilt the whole time.

Record house prices, car prices, food prices with stagnant wages what would you expect?
Working class people have nothing left to spend after the basic needs are met

quote:

Originally posted by apprentice:
Black Friday has been diluted to Thanksgiving week through Christmas eve. You can't have a "super" sale for that long and expect everyone to go full tilt the whole time.

If business was good and the economy wasn't a house of cards, you wouldn't have a 'super sale' that was anywhere near a month long! Just sayin'

Bidenomics in Action!

My wife and I sharply reduced Christmas spending starting several years back, when we found ourselves trying to come up with stuff for one another just to have something to put under the tree.

Now we buy one or two relatively inexpensive gifts for one another, usually specifically what we've asked for, and leave it at that.

Heck, last year one of my Christmas gifts was an EZ-Curl bar for the home gym I'm putting together. I got it, inspected it, put it back in the box, stuck the box in a corner of the basement, then hauled it back out and put it under the tree Christmas eve. My wife stuck a pre-made bow and a "To: engigmatic/From: Santa" tag on it

quote:

Originally posted by apprentice:
Black Friday has been diluted to Thanksgiving week through Christmas eve. You can't have a "super" sale for that long and expect everyone to go full tilt the whole time.

Longer than that, for some sellers. Some of them turn the entire week during which Thanksgiving occurs into "Black Friday" weeks. And, yeah: I suspect that's part of it, too.

I’ve been telling folks in my life for a few years now: please don’t get me gifts. I have plenty of shit, and I’d rather go out to dinner with you than get more stuff. I’d rather hang out for a couple hours and catch up than get a present. Some folks still give me stuff because it is what THEY like to do, which is fine, but I’m perfectly happy not to get presents to celebrate birthdays, holidays, or whatever. That’s just me though.

- Bret

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Is The American Consumer Tapped Out?

The Buy Now Pay Later chart was particularly troubling. Most goods sold at those stores are discretionary which means people are increasingly financing discretionary spending.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
The Buy Now Pay Later chart was particularly troubling. Most goods sold at those stores are discretionary which means people are increasingly financing discretionary spending.

It may be getting worse, but, American consumers have been doing this for years and years.

My wife just told me a couple weeks back of a news story she saw somewhere (probably not on DNM) about how many Americans are still paying-off last Christmas' spending.

Consumers are stupid for spending money this way. The banks are even more stupid for encouraging it. It's one thing to spend upon tangible assets such as real estate money you don't have for things you cannot afford. It's quite another thing to do so on disposable and intangible products and services.

I expect the economy will crash again. I expect the next time it happens will make the last time it happened seem like a walk in the park. It won't be Biden's or Trump's fault--or whomever is in office at the time. It will be the fault of the American consumer and the banks.

We don't need anymore stuff. We have everything and so do my folks. Last time they came to AZ for Xmas, the theme was "make it, bake it, or we won't take it." No other gifts allowed. Best Xmas ever. Though it really wasn't as cheap as you'd think. My gift to everyone was I'd cook them any meal of their choice, no exceptions, no expense spared. My mom took this as a challenge and ordered a pretty fancy meal that ran me ragged and cost a bundle. But it was better than having more stuff we don't need.

Record levels of credit card debt won't help.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:
We don't need anymore stuff. We have everything and so do my folks. Last time they came to AZ for Xmas, the theme was "make it, bake it, or we won't take it." No other gifts allowed. Best Xmas ever. Though it really wasn't as cheap as you'd think. My gift to everyone was I'd cook them any meal of their choice, no exceptions, no expense spared. My mom took this as a challenge and ordered a pretty fancy meal that ran me ragged and cost a bundle. But it was better than having more stuff we don't need.

That is a great idea, hopefully I can talk my wife into it.

Its really hard to make "better."

Its exceptionally hard to make "better to the point replacement makes sense."

But to make "cooler" is far easier.

I do think it's getting to a point where "the only way to win, is not to play," is becoming a more common feeling.

Admittedly, my crowd is, mostly, fairly devout Christians, and kids have gotten so expensive, that there just isn't much else left over.

I'm rather serious with a young lady, and I do fairly well, financially, but we are thinking about moving somewhere with vastly cheaper costs of living, to make it comfortable to have multiple kids.

quote:

Originally posted by sadlerbw:
I’ve been telling folks in my life for a few years now: please don’t get me gifts. I have plenty of shit, and I’d rather go out to dinner with you than get more stuff. I’d rather hang out for a couple hours and catch up than get a present. Some folks still give me stuff because it is what THEY like to do, which is fine, but I’m perfectly happy not to get presents to celebrate birthdays, holidays, or whatever. That’s just me though.

- Bret

You have expressed my feelings about gift receiving perfectly! From now on, I'm going to express this same sentiment.

quote:

Originally posted by MoosehornMan:
Record house prices, car prices, food prices...

Of course they will spin this in to saying 'spending is at an all time high! The economy must be great!'

Being a IT Recruiter that gets paid to put people to work on commissions. This will be one of the worst years I've seen in 10+ years income wise.

We've cut way back on tons of things. Didn't help that I got hit for $14K for a new HVAC & $2K to remote a tree & resod in the front yard.

I don't know: the local outlet mall is packed and the traffic around it is absolutely bonkers. Seems like there is still some gas left in the tank.