Like a binge drinker who chugs back one too many shots and regrets it the next day, you might be experiencing a peculiar hangover of your own – a financial hangover brought on by excessive shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
By some estimates, 147 million Americans headed out shopping Black Friday weekend. Some people couldn’t even wait until Black Friday itself. They left family and friends at home Thursday night, venturing out to bust through retailers’ doors the evening of Thanksgiving.
Well, if your recent holiday shopping binges have left you feeling a little woozy, don’t worry: there’s a remedy to help fix your finances and restore your economic sobriety.
In fact, here are four cures for a Black Friday, Cyber Monday or any holiday shopping hangover.
1. Returns
If you found yourself gorging on every possible deal in the toy section of your local WalMart, and you don’t even remember half of what you bought, it’s time to administer the remedy to what ails you.
Fortunately, you don’t have to take a pill or down some weird, nasty-tasting concoction.
The prescription to fix your financial hangover is simple: it’s that mound of receipts that are tucked away in your wallet, or contained in those hoards of shopping bags you’ve hidden away from the kids.
So here’s the deal. To get rid of your financial hangover, you’re going to go through those bags and separate “must keep” items from the “I really shouldn’t have” stuff.
Take the “I really shouldn’t have” things, throw them into the back of your car, and return them to the store or stores where you bought them. Immediately.
Do it now because if you don’t, those same items will be sitting around in your house for who knows how long. They might end up as “extra” gift for people who probably don’t even need it. Or even worse, that merchandise will sit around in the back of some closet or your car trunk until it’s well past the store’s 7, 10 or 30-day return period.
Then you’ll really be out of luck.
2. Offsets
So you convinced yourself that you just had to buy that expensive gadget for your spouse or significant other, or that ridiculously priced designer bag for yourself, right? OK, fine.
Now it’s time to take a cue from the politicians: It’s time to figure out how you’re actually going to pay for the stuff you bought. It’s time to balance your budget.
Anything that cuts your budget is an offset to excessive spending.
So what are you prepared to slash? Perhaps it will be “bye bye Netflix for a year.” Or maybe you can offset your holiday spending and reduce your cable bill by dropping those 100 premium channels you’ve got.
It’s up to you to figure it out. But you absolutely must come up with a list of financial offsets that match or exceed the crazy amount of holiday spending you did.
3. Payback
Here’s your next cure for a holiday shopping binge gone bad: I call it payback.
Depending on how you look at it, the recipient of the payback is you, the bank that issued your credit card – or both of you.
First let’s deal with you: You’re the one who went out there and charged up untold dollars worth of stuff that you didn’t really need and probably couldn’t afford.
Nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to shop. Therefore, it’s your responsibility to pay off what you spent.
So let’s just cut out the excuses and deal with reality, namely: How are you going to get rid of this debt so that it’s not lingering around come next holiday season?
Consider the 3-3-3 payback strategy. As I explain momentarily, two-thirds of this strategy applies to you. The final third is payback, so to speak, against the banks(s) that encouraged you to rack up unaffordable holiday debt.
OK, here’s your payback.
Start by tallying your total spending and dividing it by three. So let’s say you charged $900. That $900 figure divided by three is $300. So now you know that $300 is how much you have to pay each month to be rid of those credit card bills in three months.
What if you did so much damage on Black Friday or Cyber Monday that there is no possible way you can knock out your debts in just three months? Fine, let’s move on to the second part of the 3-3-3 payback technique.
This step calls for you to make a commitment to pay at least 3 times the minimum payments that you credit card company requires.
If your credit card has about $5,000 in outstanding debt, your bank is probably asking you to pay between $100 and $150 a month for your minimum payment. That’s because banks usually calculate your minimum payment at 2% to 3% of your total balance.
Is paying triple your minimum payment still not financially doable? Tough luck. Figure how to make it work. Go back and see strategy #2 above on offsets. Work in another offset or a series of offsets that would free up enough cash flow to allow you to triple your minimum monthly payment.
I don’t call this technique payback for nothing.
Now what about that bank or credit card issuer of yours?
They did approve all those excessive charges, right?
Come to think of it, they probably even offered you a higher credit line, a balance transfer deal, or even a payment “holiday” to take a break from your normal payments – all in a bid to get you to do more spending.
Despite their marketing to the contrary, they weren’t just trying to be nice for the holiday season. They were hoping to cash in on you, thinking (correctly, of course) that you wouldn’t be able to pay your balances in full.
That’s how banks make fat profits off you and all the other “I’ll worry about it later” spenders who go buck wild on Black Friday, Cyber Monday and throughout the holiday season.
So here’s some payback for the banks.
Go dig through your junk mail right now and find a 0% balance transfer offer from any company. In fact, any low-rate deal will do, as long as it’s an interest rate that’s better the one you have.
Now call up three of your creditors and tell them you got a better deal from the competition and ask them to match or beat that interest rate. If they won’t budge, tell them they just lost your business.
Then follow through on your threat/promise and take your business elsewhere.
Don’t worry about customer loyalty, sticking to a certain card or brand, or even things like point, miles and other credit card perks. Those things are everywhere.
Besides, banks that act as holiday shopping enablers and then fail to have any responsiveness or flexibility for their customers need to learn that payback is a … well, you know.
4. Sacrifice
Do you remember being in school and having a gym coach put you or your classmates through the ringer if one or all of you messed up? Maybe you talked too much, chewed gum or showed up late for practice.
Whenever you did something coach didn’t like he made you run extra laps, or perhaps do another set of push-ups.
Even if you weren’t the one who goofed, you had to sacrifice for the whole team.
Ditto for solving your current debt and spending hangover related to your holiday shopping excesses.
You’re going to make a sacrifice – and maybe you whole family too – that’s equal to the shopping damage you’ve done. So if you charged $500, or overspent by $500, you’re going to do something positive to the same tune.
Take $500 and put it into savings, or put an extra $500 into your 401(k) or Individual Retirement Account. Maybe write an extra check to your mortgage company and knock down your mortgage balance by 500 bucks.
Whatever your financial sacrifice, it shouldn’t seem too easy. In fact, it should have at least a slight feeling of punishment to it.
The bottom line is this: You’re the one who chose to worship at the altar of the Black Friday sales gods. So now it’s time to sacrifice something in return.
Your sacrifice can take a future form as well. You know that romantic Valentine’s weekend getaway you typically do with your honey? Well, nix that in 2013.
Or the family reunion you were planning to attend next summer? Let your relatives know you’ll be joining them via Skype instead.
Or maybe you’d intended to upgrade your PC or get a new iPod next year. Nope.
Tough it out instead with whatever you’ve currently got. That’s your penance and your sacrifice.
Lastly, your sacrifice can be reducing the frequency or cost of something as well. For example: ladies, those trips to the hair salon you enjoy so much? Well, maybe they’ll have to happen once a month, instead of every two weeks.
That’ll learn ya.
The lesson: everything comes at a price, honey. Even your Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending excursions, which can leave you with a financial hangover that lasts far longer than you’d anticipated.
So maybe, just maybe, when the holidays roll around next year, you’ll remember the sacrifices and other things you had to endure following this year’s holiday shopping binges — and you won’t be so tempted to over-indulge next year.
