'Tis the Season to Regain Reason

People believe what they hear, and what they hear at the holiday season is shopping, shopping, and more shopping. Cute little knicknames have developed to make it even more fun to spend one's self into bankruptcy, such as "shopoholic" and "shopportunistic." My favorite, however, is the newly-coined "luxaholic," a person who has to have (their emphasis, not mine) the best, the top-of-the-line, the must-have item of the rich and famous. That's so cute! Imagine rewarding binge spenders with their own little advertising slogan to make them spend even more money they don't have.

Christmas has never been my favorite time of the year and it's because it's so competitive, a time to one-up the other people in my life by showing that I can buy bigger, better, and more than anyone else who touches my recipient's life. I've never been into playing games for fun, so I'm not going to jeopardize my financial well-being to play them for the holidays. I did hear the adults in my life remark that they were buying for the children this year and cutting back on the adult gift-giving, which is a good sign. However, that disclaimer was all too often followed by, "I'll wait for the after-Christmas sales to pick up a few things for myself." It's spending money you don't have whether it occurs on Dec. 24 or Dec. 26, so if you cannot afford it before Christmas, you cannot afford it after Christmas. How hard is that to comprehend?

Retailers have created a feeding frenzy of conspicuous consumption geared around the holidays to fill their own pockets, not to enhance the individual's life. The retailer has to sell the product and, frankly, it does not matter who the buyer is: rich, poor, or the easily-persuaded middle class pseudo affluent credit card shopper who has to purchase enough packages to poo-poo being poor, while pushing the credit card limits to compete with the high-end shopper. It's a delicate spending plan based on how the middle class consumer sees himself in relationship to the rest of the shoppers: I am not so poor that I have to stand in line to receive donations from charities, but I can only shop the high-end stores if there are sales because I don't want anyone to know that I have over-extended myself financially and live with the knowledge that all it takes is one "something" to tumble my house of credit cards.

We have all become too focused on material things, rather than on our lives. We measure our self-worth by what we have and what we can buy, even if that's not the way we feel inside. It takes courage and intestinal fortitude to just say no -- and stick to your guns in the face of peer pressure and advertising campaigns. However, if we are ever going to rebuild our country's financial strength, we have to redefine our individual worth and say to the retailers "no, I'm not buying that item," rather than "It's just perfect: I'll take two."

Let's bring back into vogue some other cute sayings, such as "save for a rainy day," "open a holiday savings account," "keep current on all your accounts," and "I cannot afford that." Rather than throwing our money away on an endless stream of products we neither need nor can afford, we could develop a new advertising image of savvy consumers who shop wisely and do not react to the enticements of colorful mailers designed to make luxury purchases seem like a must-have, especially when the item is marked 10% off.