It appears that the marketing ploys of the stores in your city may be paying off this year.
According to the National Retail Foundation, holiday sales in the United States are expected to top out at about $451.5 billion. That’s pretty close to the 2006 pre-recession levels.
The wife and I added our bucks to the mix yesterday, taking advantage of some 20% discounts at Macy’s that are available to their credit-card holders. The wife is pretty sneaky about that.
What she does is charge it to the Macy’s card, thereby earning the 20% discount on top of whatever price reductions they’re offering, then paying it off in cash at the register, thereby avoiding any fees that might accumulate on the card before we get a chance to pay it off.
We do our Christmas shopping for each other together. I pick out what I want, and she picks out what she wants. Then, I wrap her gifts and she wraps mine. There’s no surprise involved, but we benefit by (1) getting something we want, and (2) spending quality time together in the process.
One tends to do these things as one gets older.
Your method makes good sense, but I do love surprises. (Poor Kurt!)
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