Christmas cheer, lessons and blues
Christmas is always a wonderful opportunity for friends and family to gather and share their blessings and sometimes problems that were overcome during the year.
Therefore, I mark it as joy to be preparing to celebrate Christmas 2024. As I have explained in past editions of this column, the Christmas period is the time I engage in deep reflections- taking stock of what worked, what didn’t, what needs to change, and of course, a look into the future, particularly the year ahead.
In the spirit of Christmas, I always ensure that l reach out to as many people as l can and invite over to the house a group of children from an “adopted” orphanage home to share a meal with them- just lunch. This year’s rendezvous with my family from the orphanage home was on Sunday, December 15.
I remember, vividly, a remark that was made to me by one of the guardians that accompanied the kids to my house when I hosted them on December 18, 2021. This is what she said: “This has become an important event in the life of these wonderful kids to the extent that they always look forward to this fun day”. It is an important day for me too, especially when I see the kids at full blast with themselves having fun.
Fun aside, Christmas has some useful lessons for all of us, and we must not lose sight of them. The narrative about Christmas is that God sent His one and only Son to earth to deliver the message of Salvation, of Love, of Hope and Peace. This message is spoken through the decades and generations and attested to in many ways. That is the spirit of Christmas, which should be our subject of reflection during this festive period.
Understand also that Christmas, and for that matter festive periods, should not provide you with the cover to go into overdrive with your spending. The festive period is not the period to spend, be merry and to think about the problems afterwards.
No. Rather, it should be the period of reflection, to think through your life carefully to see whether indeed you deserve to give yourself a gift or not. It all depends on the path you have been on from the beginning of the year.
Remember that when you feel squeezed to find the extra cash to buy presents for the children it is not always the case that you “have no choice” but sometimes it is because you are seeing all other alternatives as “unacceptable”.
Your bank account today is only a reflection of the past decisions that you made. The pay off, good or bad, is only a manifestation of how bright or otherwise, those decisions were. If the situation is bad, you can change that with the right attitude in 2025 though.
Regarding your shopping habit this Christmas please be measured with your spending. In less than two weeks from today we will be celebrating Christmas Day and as usual shoppers are on the high streets looking for bargains.
Of course, bargain-hunting, in this digital age, will not be limited to only in-store shopping since there is every chance that online outlets will equally be available for shoppers too. But on or offline, be measured with your spending habits.
There is no gain saying consumers tend to spend more during Christmas, and other notable festive seasons, because these are periods that people tend to exchange gifts and show appreciation to loved ones. This reflects in national import bills, as well as household expenditure.
On record, the last quarter of every year is the time that high street sales go up because of increased individual and household spending. And it also follows that because of the increased spending in December especially, there is always some financial anxiety in January; something is always needed to assuage the pain of the excess spending the previous month.
Do not adopt a business-as-usual attitude during this festive period, as far as your household spending is concerned. Prudently managing your finances is a requisite in household planning and that your spending must always mimic what the big picture depicts.
For instance, if the mood among policymakers is “cautionary”, why would you ignore all the warning signs and go into overdrive with your spending? Listen to the experts.
Understandably, the commercialised approach to Christmas, highlighted through increased advertisement, and the generally accepted norm of exchanging gifts during the period all have an impact on the pocket too. But, significantly also, when the spending is not matched by a corresponding pot of funds, chances are, the individual or household budget suffers. This can really become troubling if the right cushion is not available to help you absorb the financial shocks following an unplanned spending cycle.
Instead of joining the spending-spree bandwagon, I believe that this is the right time for you to take stock of your journey so far, measure the risks and make a fair assessment of what you ought to do with your money going forward.
We all have different attitudes to risk, which means that you should not just follow what someone else is doing when it comes to their financial decisions. Your attitude to risk should guide the decisions you make.
Christmas is the festive cheer that also brings blues because increasing spending without a corresponding increase in income will always throw the budget out of gear.
And when that happens and care is not taken, there could be “system failure”- literally! System failure because your entire financial plan the following year will require recalibration to sync expenditure to income correctly due to the overspending in the month of December alone because of Christmas.
Every purchase is a choice, and the accompanying price we pay is always more than the in- store marked price.
botabil@gmail.com