Once again we approach the year end holidays and the merriment that they bring. Also, however, we will soon feel the impact of the payment for that merriment. Paying for things has become the American way. We pay for (or think we can pay for) any and every thing that we can imagine. We think in terms of money when we want any goods or services; no where is the thought of barter or honest work. Someone said, "I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor; rich is better". True enough, but these are not the only two choices. The many real joys in life do not have a price tag. Nonetheless, we live in this pecuniary society which only recognizes and worships the almighty dollar so we now face the task of paying those bills that will surely find their way into the mailbox. Of the many ways to pay for something, credit, that venous fly trap of the financial world, has become king. We think that we can just put off (forever) the paying of the bill and the credit card company will, in time, just forget about it. We are, as everyone knows, wrong about this. The bills just keep on coming and with a little something extra – called interest – attached. Seemingly, we never learn. We end up paying twice the amount for a given item and still we don’t learn. Worse, we train the next generation to do the same thing; we cripple them in the same way that our parents did to us. There are many ways to get away from this terrible, hurtful system in which we live. Certainly, with a little thought and imagination, we can come up with a sane way to enjoy the holidays without having to become financially strapped. Let’s look at a few.
1) Cut the card. That’s right, we have all heard this before, just cut the credit card in half and send it back to the company with instructions as to what they can do with it; they are not your friends.
2) Know who cares. To a real person a handshake and a sincere affirmation of love is a gift worth receiving. To the money people, it is all greed. In fact, to the financial world, a person who pays his or her bills in a timely manner is referred to as a "deadbeat", a person who accrues no additional charges. Our society is entirely backwards in its concepts of morality.
3) Money doesn’t count. When we think of giving a gift to someone for some occasion, find the emotion, or the feeling in the gift. A gift should be be more than an ephemeral toy; it should keep on giving as long as possible. For example, giving someone the feeling that they are a treasured friend is a gift that can last a lifetime.
4) Don’t spoil people. Teach younger people what value is in real terms. Give people something that they can carry around in their heart, that would be much better, and more valuable, than something that they can drive. Look back in your own life and see which people required you to develop structure and discipline in your life and which people ruined your life by spoiling you. In retrospect it is easy to see which people esteemed you and gave you the ability to develop self respect.
5) Pay your bills. If you have to spend money ( and we all have to spend something in this society) then pay what you owe – on time. Get rid of those pesky surprises in the mailbox as soon as possible. There is no sane reason to buy something on credit that you can handle with cash in hand. There is a sign that we frequently see in small stores, it reads: Cash makes no enemies; let’s be friends. This is very good advice.
6) Change the holidays. Try changing the dates of the holidays you choose to celebrate. Why have Christmas, for example, on 25 December? There is no real proof that Jesus was born on that day so why are we forced to celebrate it in December? Shift the date a few days so that you do whatever shopping after the fact when prices plummet. It makes more sense to drive when there’s no rush hour traffic, so do your driving a week after the holiday when everyone else is sleeping off their hangover. All the major stores inflate their prices before a holiday and they have massive sales after the holiday. It doesn’t take any deep thinking to realize that you can save money by just altering the time of the purchase.
7) Take those coupons. Whenever you can find a way to decrease the cost of a purchase, do it. There are very few stores that do not have coupons and sales to entice us to buy. Look at coupon websites, like Go Promo Code, that specialize in finding money saving coupons and good deals for everyone.