|
Deliver us from temptation
By Sarah Coles
Every Christmas we vow that this year will be different. We'll stick to our budgets and enter the New Year feeling smug and self-satisfied, rather than impoverished and confused. But somehow things never quite work out that way. As we wander into the winter wonderland of the high street or stagger into the snowflake-encrusted depths of the supermarket, we lower our guard, open our wallets and wave goodbye to our best intentions.
To be fair, this isn't entirely our fault.
Retailers are masters at this game - they know what drives our insane Christmas spending, and just how to take advantage of it. Dr Joan Harvey, a chartered psychologist at the University of Newcastle, explains: "For a whole number of reasons there's an upwards drift in spending. And unless you know what is driving it and find a way to cap it, you can spend the rest of the year paying it off."
Our attempts to plan ahead are exploited by retailers who start stocking gifts earlier in the year. Although you may feel organised, unless you've stuck to a plan you are still likely to make impulse buys - just a few weeks earlier in the year.
Supermarket tricks
The supermarkets begin their assault in the area of the shop known as the 'transition zone'. This is the first 15 feet of the shop, when consumers are unlikely to buy anything, they're just getting in the mood. As Christmas approaches, special deals on gigantic tins of chocolates appear in this zone. They don't say 'Christmas' on them, but they make shoppers think about stocking up.
A spokeswoman for Sainsbury's says: "At this time of year, we stock goods that will last, such as chocolates, tins of biscuits and cards, to help our customers spread the cost of Christmas." Of course, unless you have a will of iron, you'll have broken into your goodies in a matter of days, and you'll be back in the supermarket, buying them all over again.
Another good intention, which regularly turns bad, is our desire to bag a festive bargain. The retailers know just how obsessed we are with getting a good deal at this expensive time of year, and produce a huge variety of special offers. Some bargains are genuinely good deals: supermarkets are well known for cracking open fabulous deals on things like wine and champagne in the run up to Christmas. Prices may be so low that they are in fact loss-leaders. But supermarkets know that once they've got you through the door, you will come across over 1,000 carefully placed Christmas goods, and before you know it, you'll end up buying much more than a few bottles of cheap booze.
Special offers
Special offers on seasonal specialities will be rolled out around the supermarket, and positioned to catch your eye. The same offers will be repeated in two or three different displays as you move around the shop and your resolve weakens. A large number of these deals will be multibuys, such as three-for-two offers, to encourage you to buy more than you originally intended.
If you are genuinely saving money on things you would have bought anyway, there's nothing to be lost from taking advantage of a bargain. But think carefully before you allow a retailer to take control of your decision-making. Think about it, how often do you actually need two, let alone three identical items? And if you're venturing into the supermarket for a specific bargain, try to stay focused on that rather than stocking up while you're there.
Sometimes price reductions may be offered on special half-price days or evenings. This taps into the second driving force behind Christmas overspending - when parting with our money becomes a pleasurable activity. Retailers don't just want to be places to shop, they want to be leisure attractions in their own right. Shops like Fortnum and Mason in London and Fenwick in Newcastle go to town on their window displays. Harvey says: "You see hundreds of people queuing up with their kids to see the displays." The fun is, of course, continued inside, often with a Santa's Grotto for the kids.
For the most weak-willed of us, the safest option is to steer clear of these temptations altogether. This may seem rather contrary to the spirit of Christmas. After all, where's the fun of the festive season if we cannot indulge those we love? And here is where we fall foul of the hardest overspending driver of all to handle - the fact that Christmas spending has become intertwined with a whole host of emotions.
We're also worried about what others think of us. Harvey says: "People look at what others in their reference group are spending. We all make social comparisons, and we don't want to look mean."
The first stage in overcoming this is to take off the rose-tinted glasses and really look at what other people are spending, rather than what your children claim their friends' parents are splashing out, for example. If you want to control this impulse still further, you can talk to close family and friends and agree a limit to what you spend. "You'll be surprised how relieved they'll be to be able to cut their costs too," adds Harvey.
Beating these emotional drivers takes some serious thought about what Christmas shopping really means to you. If you can understand this you could find your tendency to splash out drop considerably.
Don't panic
But if you really don't have time for some seasonal soul-searching, getting a handle on the practicalities should at least help hold you in check. And the key thing to get to grips with in the final weeks before Christmas is the tendency to panic. Shops have an amazing ability to turn fear into profit.
The supermarkets take particular care in the way they arrange aisles to appeal to speed-shoppers who don't have time to shop around. Those items we're most likely to see as we whizz past - on the middle shelf at eye level - will be the most expensive and upmarket, while the cheaper options are tucked away.
They will also pile expensive Christmas goodies on the ends of aisles, known as 'gondolas'. As this is where shoppers turn their trolleys, they have to take a little more time and can be tempted into impulse buys.
The high street is also great at exploiting our Christmas shopping panic. They pre-package gifts and label them 'for men', 'for the garden-lover' or 'for the chocoholic', so that stressed shoppers needn't look beyond the box, and can merely follow the shops' instructions.
It is vital, therefore, to do everything you can to avoid panicking. If you have to leave shopping to the last minute, then make sure you go armed with a list. You should also plan your shopping trip ruthlessly - there should be no loitering by flashy displays to listen to carol singers, and no buying presents just because they look nice and you think they may come in handy.
Of course, if you really love shopping at Christmas time, have plenty of cash to fritter away and get more out of the full festive experience the more you spend, then why not let yourself get swept away by all the tricks in the retailers' book? However, if - like most of us - you have a budget to stick to, it makes sense to locate your festive Achilles heel and do everything you can to stop the shops taking advantage of you.
Useful links:
|
Send Article by Email
Send Article by IM
Blog This with Y! 360
Printable View