Black Friday, Credit Card Debt, And Frugality

While listening to the radio today, there were several references to "Black Friday" sales being promoted for this coming Friday (see here). According to this Wikipedia article, "Black Friday is an informal name for the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, the fourth Thursday of November, which has been regarded as the beginning of the country's Christmas shopping season since 1952, although the term "Black Friday" did not become widely recognised or used until the 1980s or later in some regions." Here is some more "Black Friday" history.

From thebalance.com website here, we can view the Black Friday sales statistics from 2002 to 2018. Looking at the stats, we can plainly see that the total amount spent per shopper has steadily increased since 2009, after the 2008 financial crisis. Note that the average amount spent per shopper in 2018 is projected to be a little over $1,007 dollars. Here is online spending stats for Black Friday, 2019.

This eye-opening Forbes article reveals the sad part of this spending history regarding credit card debt by stating: "many Americans are still paying off the credit card debt they racked up over the holidays last year. Among shoppers who charged their holiday gifts in 2017, over 1 in 4 are still paying off the purchases made on their credit cards as they head into another holiday season, according to a survey from personal finance website NerdWallet cited by USA Today. Shoppers aren't putting their credit cards down just yet, with 73% saying they plan to use a credit card to buy presents this year, up from 58% in 2017." See average credit score in every state here.

My question to all of the above spending history and continued rising credit card debt is, "Whatever happened to the idea of frugality relative to the liberal spending habits of our society?" It's this writer's firm belief that there is no valid reason for not being able to save money (see here), but we have to put the skids on our spending habits in order to achieve that goal. Priorities (what's really important in life) need to be firmly established (Matthew 6:33). Know that spending ourselves into oblivion does not end well (see here). Beloved, have a blessed Thanksgiving Day, for we have much to be thankful for (see NPR article).

---Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets