Tag Spending

What Faux Fall Flora Wrought

Michael 6 Comments

We are almost half way through September which means if you haven’t yet, you soon are going to be too late to buy any of the good Halloween decorations. I was thinking about this last weekend when I was taking stock of my meager faux fall flora for my coffee table and front door. I like fall. I like the colors. I like the calmness that seems to fall upon fall mornings. But except for fun size candy bars, I’m not so much into Halloween.

Apparently I didn’t get the memo. Last year Americans spent over $9 million on Halloween decorations. Right around 9,100,000 dollars according to The Balance e-zine. They went on to say that is because it’s an economical holiday and people “are willing to spend money on something if it provides a lot of value. Halloween does that.” I guess they didn’t see the $14 hairy spider at Big Lots. Or maybe they did and their idea of value is different from mine.

FauxFallFloraIf you crunch some numbers and divide this into that, that being how many people claim to celebrate Halloween with more than spiked cider and this being that 9 million figure, you come up with a spend of about $86 per person. I’ve spent that much on a nativity set and I have well over 50 of them. (Really. Some people are into hairy spiders, I’m into nativities. I have them, many complete with wise men, made of clothes pins, cheesecloth, corn husks, ceramic, glass, plastic, straw, bronze, wood (carved, sculpted, machine cut and assembled, hinged, and nested), bronze, stone, steel, marble, paper, wool and rubber, sawn from barn board, and cut out of paper.) It’s what I do for Christmas so I can’t say if you want to eighty-some bucks on Halloween you’re nuts. But if you’re planning on spending eighty-some bucks on Halloween, you’re nuts! Except for the little candy bars. Those are cool.

Anyway…just yesterday I was going through my email and I came across a headline “Ugly Halloween Sweaters Were Made For People Who Are Too Lazy to Dress Up.” Well, I couldn’t pass up that piece of bait and I clicked away. What I discovered is, like ugly Christmas sweaters, the ugly Halloween sweaters really aren’t. This is just my opinion but that opinion is that they are kind of cute. The other thing I discovered is that somebody’s going to have to revise that $86 per person spending estimate. Those sweaters go for about $40 per.

For myself, I’m sticking with the faux fall flora. Maybe I’ll spend my $86 on another manger scene this Christmas.

 

Change for the Better

Michael Leave a comment

Who said, “Oh please don’t change?” Change is good! The only constant is change. Change makes things happens. You know what I mean by change. Loose change. Pocket change. Coins.

Yes, coins. Every night I empty my pocket of change. I don’t specifically hoard change. During the day if I can spend change I use those coins. Sometimes I might even drop a few into the “Need A Penny Take A Penny” dish at the cash register at the farm market up the road. But at the end of the day I relieve myself of my metallic burden and each morning I start with empty pockets – some mornings more easily than others.

Does it ever amount to anything? Well, there is a new commercial on TV during the daytime that proposes that if you are between 50 and 85 you can come up with enough spare change to buy life insurance for a month. I don’t spend mine quite so impulsively.

About twice a year I sit down with my Mason jar wherein I toss my daily haul. Back when I was working and was spending more time on irresponsible buying I used a big old pickle jar like you’d see on a counter of an old-fashioned country general store. But I digress. Last weekend we had a couple rainy days so I spent my indoor time putting off rolling coins for a while. After sufficient procrastination I broke down and counted and stacked and rolled. And when I added it up I’ll head off to the bank in the next couple days with about $134.00.

It’s not much but enough that I refuse to spend it on food or shelter. I’ll find something to blow it on and sometime after New Year I’ll do it again and I’ll blow that wad.

Now let’s see. What can I get with this new found money? A field level seat at the ball game? A couple of tickets to a play? A round trip to one of a few destinations on a low-price budget airline with advance purchase? Sixty-five round trips to several destinations on Mega-Bus with advance purchase? A really, really cheap cruise? Half a TV? Quarter of a phone? More life insurance? Whatever It is I’ll probably write about it some time. Stay tuned. Change is exciting!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Merry Ghosties

Michael Leave a comment

There are 33 days until Halloween.  That’s an important number to keep in mind.  Thirty-three days.  Just last week on a news report, we were told that Americans would spend about $7 billion on Halloween this season.  There is one local couple who won’t be in that spending frenzy.  They were spotted last weekend buying a Christmas tree.  For them, Halloween must have been purchased sometime in July!

We all know that the stores have Christmas merchandise out already.  Folks are perusing the aisles with shopping carts filled with fall decorations and often will stop to ogle the rows of pre-lit, pre-decorated, pre-gifted Christmas trees before moving on to the motion activated ghoul door ornament.  But nobody buys those things yet.  The Christmas trees, not the ghouls.

If people start buying Christmas now where will the analysts be next year when predicting Halloween spending?  They could be out of jobs and then who will buy their door knocker embellishments be they ghoulies or evergreens for them?  If we have any plans on reading how much we’ll be spending on Halloween 2015, we have a lot of shopping to do now for 2014!

To make the predictors close to being right we need to spend about $3 million in costumes, $2 billion in candy, another $2 billion in decorations, and a couple hundred million on pet costumes and goodies.  How do we think we’re going to manage those sums if people are out there already buying Christmas trees?  It’s enough to make you think if you need more eggs for Easter.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.