New Year’s atmosphere and holiday euphoria imposes on us the feeling that we must be happy, that we must be cheerful and smiling. Cities are decorated. Candles and Christmas trees on every corner, whether in the city, shopping centers and all shops where something is sold.
As December is called the month of giving, we feel like we have to spend, buy something for ourselves or give it to others. All in order to fill the void in ourselves. Giving gifts is always nice, but it doesn’t have to be only in December or for the New Year.
On the other hand, the cities are full of New Year’s fairs, various houses where you can buy all kinds of little things, there are many events. It all tempts us. To the extent that many take out loans, in banks and microcredit organizations or take out shopping cards.
All that false brilliance and emptiness in the soul forces us to spend more than we have, and then in January we barely “make ends meet”. It is known that January is the longest and “poorest” month of the year.
We talked to economic expert Igor Gavran so that we don’t get carried away by that atmosphere, to spend more than we have.
– I would say that it is mostly present in larger cities, while in smaller, special rural areas, of course, there are not so many opportunities, and mostly no income, to think about this.
In any case, we have a small part of citizens who don’t care if they spend more than they should because they have enough income to celebrate holidays in exotic destinations.
On the other hand, the majority who do not have such funds are in a dilemma whether to stay within realistic limits and ignore all these promotions and celebrations and welcome the holidays in accordance with their possibilities and tradition because this consumer version of the holiday is not anyone’s tradition, or whether to take on debt to create the illusion that they can do more than they really can, either for the sake of others or for themselves – says Gavran.
Of course, everything favors trade and consumption, and similar to “Black Friday”, most price reductions are apparent and it’s hard to find a real one.
– Also, even if the discount is real, it doesn’t mean that we have to buy something that we don’t need. Again, someone falls into depression because in these situations in the world, suicides of those who can’t mentally bear what they can’t afford anymore happen.
I think that celebrating the holiday within one’s own means is the best choice, and best with home-made products and in the company of loved ones, without thinking too much about what we might not have at that moment or increasing one’s own problems by making the wrong moves, such as going into debt – economic expert Igor Gavran tells Faktor.
