I felt pleased with myself that I didn’t buy anything from the Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday madness. Not that I didn’t have any reasons to. My phone is 5 years old with multiple cracks on the screen protection. My Mac is 6 years old with some cracks on itself as well. And who knows what kind of needs could have hit me the seconds I browsed those websites? We all want another pair of shoes.
Some of the people I talked to didn’t buy either. I think that we live in the time of surplus supply. Manufacturers keep producing in quantity and variety. To shorten the sales cycle, they cut the time to market and also the price to get a bit deeper into our wallet. Hence, it seems that discounts are all year around. Personally, I wasn’t impressed by any discounts during the very last holidays. The discounts seemed like any that I had seen before. Plus, I resisted the temptation to buy things that I didn’t actually need. It was not easy!
Imagine the money you saved from not spending on things you didn’t need during the holiday. Instead, you invested the money in the stock market. For the past month, a lot of tech stocks plummeted. Apple lost almost $200 billion in market valuation, for instance. Some turned around and recovered pretty fast such as VMWare. As a result, the investment could have netted you a reasonably good amount of money. If you invest in the stocks and hold them for a long time, the compound interest can lead to an even bigger return, provided that, of course, the stocks perform well.
I stated before that personal finance should be mandatory at schools. The earlier kids can learn about it, the better. Look at this tweet below and you’ll know what I am talking about. Even if you are suspicious of the figures, do your own research on poverty in the US or student loans.
Minh Quang Duong 