Why You Should be Buying These Products ... After the Holidays

So a few weeks out from Christmas Day and in the midst of holiday hustle and bustle, travel plans and shopping, you’re in the throes of all thinks spirit of the season.

Your propensity to spend is directly related to the time of year, but if you’re in full-blown shopping mode, and are checking your list once, twice or multiple times, you may want to hold off on a few items that are better served from a savings perspective after the holidays have subsided.

Anyone who took part in Black Friday, Cyber Monday and all things part of the Thanksgiving weekend festivities undoubtedly had a huge chunk of cash taken from their bank accounts, even if it wasn’t quite as much as last year.

The average shopper spent $313 per person on holiday shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend this year, down slightly from the $335 that was spent in 2017; the total that was spent on gifts alone topped $200 at $217.37, or nearly 70 percent of all spending that took place in 2018 on that particular weekend.^[1]

Keep in mind that $217 and $313 numbers are just for that weekend (Thanksgiving) and really don’t fully encapsulate the entirety of the holiday shopping this year.

The average American is expected to spend about $600 on holiday gifts in 2018, and certainly are well on their way to hitting that after the Thanksgiving weekend, with 40 percent going to their significant other and 25 percent willing to go into debt just to get all the gifts on their shopping list.^[2]

That same study showed that stress and the holidays (money induced, you’d believe) are a key factor in this time of year, with 47 percent of millennials, as an example, stressing over the holiday spending, and a higher rate of having to work overtime (34 percent), get a second job (29 percent) and simply those who will sell off what they can to make the shopping experience work (21 percent).

The totality of Thanksgiving spending was 3.7 billion on Thanksgiving with smartphone shopping hitting around the 54 percent mark in terms of the medium consumers used to shop.^[3]

Black Friday hardly was the black sheep of the shopping family, either as far as online sales go, and the same could be said for Cyber Monday, too.

Black Friday scored with 6.2 billion in online sales, up 24 percent from last year with Cyber Monday sales hitting nearly 8 billion in online sales, up nearly 20 percent from last year with 165 million people who shopped on Thanksgiving weekend.^[4]

Black Friday in totality was the biggest shopping day of the year with reports suggesting that more than 20 billion was spent.

Now, these numbers all translate within the household of the average person as money spent that either was accounted for as part of saying money earlier in the year for the holiday shopping, added as a result of taking on more debt or just incorporated as part of a budget you put together taking into consideration what you’re spending money on day to day, month to month, etc.

But with more than two weeks still left to go with holiday shopping, you still have plenty of days where you’ll be hit with Black Friday like pricing, Cyber Monday similar ads and even a few sales days that are their own successful and unique entity, like Green Monday (December 10) and Super Saturday, the Saturday each year before Christmas Day (December 22 this year).

Those days are likely going to lure the average consumer into a sense that the spending has only just begun, and while it is hard to imagine skipping products that would be better suited for after Christmas this time of year, you have plenty of items that fall into this elusive category.

The issue is you’re so in tune with wanting to shop now with all the deals that you might be hard pressed to pause and pump the proverbial brakes to make sure a better price isn’t waiting for you once all the tinsel, snow, pine needles and wrapping paper have settled.

Here are a few post-holiday products you’ll want to hold off on buying until after December 25 has come and gone:

Car, Truck, SUV Shopping is tailor made for after holidays, before end of the year

You undoubtedly have been inundated with deals, offers and special promotions from just about every car maker and dealership within 20 miles of your home address, and that’s because most car companies and those who sell these fine vehicles want to ship off the old to make way for the new, and that’s not uncommon as the year closes.

What isn’t always as clear cut is the time of year you should be buying a car, specifically as brands and dealerships alike offer Black Friday promotions alongside the likes of Macy’s, Target, Walmart and Amazon.

While it’s not secret December is the month to buy, you might want to wait until after those sales, surprisingly.

The best day to buy a new car is December 31, for a multitude of reasons: it’s the last day of the month and the year.

Every salesperson on the last day of really any month is quick to make deals due to hitting a quota, which is understandable in a sales driven business. New Year’s Eve Day, as far as buying car on that day, is going to save yo on average of about 8.3 percent off the sticker price, with the best day of the week to buy a car being on Monday with that number (on any given Monday, really) being about 8.10 percent with Saturday being the worst day (7.7 percent).^[5]

So it’s a win-win this year in 2018 with Monday being both the best day of the week to buy a car, and New Year’s Eve Day falling on a Monday. So the next time that Lexus or Toyota commercial hits before Christmas Day, remember that better deals are yet to come.

Christmas Decorations are discounted to next to nothing after the holidays

This is one of those categories you simply have to stay out in front of when it comes to buying and make it worth your while.

By that, if you’re going to taken advantage of huge savings on holiday decor and decorations you have to buy it after Christmas has come and gone, plain and simple.

But the issue most consumers take with that approach is that the reindeer that light up, the santa that dances or snowflakes the size of softballs for the tree or railing of your steps are useful now, for the holidays, as centerpieces or accents to what you have already decorated.

The trick is to buy what you need after the holidays for next year, and years to come, and continue that trend from one year to the next.

If you think it isn’t worth it consider that post-christmas buys that include cards at 80 percent off and wrapping paper that are around the same discount, and that also includes gift bags, too.^[6]

The typical price range after Christmas for all things holiday and season is between 40 and 75 percent off, and often hitting the 80 or 90 percent range just before January hits.^[7]

Winter apparel is all the rage after the holidays, even though it was before, too

This is a tough one to resist, because the holidays are filled with gifts on your wish list that include clothing from retailers like JC Penney, Nordstrom, Target, Macy’s and other retailers that are all about Black Friday, Thanksgiving weekend shopping and pretty much every weekend in December.

Retailers are all about discounting prices for all those aforementioned holiday shopping days but they get really aggressive after Christmas, mostly in order to make room for spring (even that far out) but mostly because they’re interested in getting some added clothing and inventory off the shelf. Basically, whatever didn’t sell before Christmas retailers want rid of and in a hurry.

Most retailers will hit you with a litany of after-Christmas sales that start and are typically settled around the 50 percent off mark.^[8]

This isn’t to say you can’t buy holiday clothing for the actual holidays as gifts for friends and family (or even yourself, for that matter), but you should understand that after Christmas is nearly as lucrative if not more so and pacing yourself is paramount.

Gym memberships are January things, but December is pretty important too for clubs

Most health clubs gear up for January as their sales push starts with a bevy of New Year’s resolutions, most of which center on what they do best: losing weight, exercising more and eating better.

The most popular New Year’s Resolutions (of the 32 percent of people that make them), saw 37 percent of the population from 2017 to 2018 want to eat better, and 37 percent want to exercise more.^[9]

What most consumers and potential gym membership buyers don’t realize is that January is most good and bad to join. Some clubs, even the more popular chains, believe that they can charge close to if not full price for memberships particularly when it comes to enrollment and start-up fees or the yearly maintenance charges associated with the less, per month, memberships.

The reason they feel as though they can charge more is because of the need associated with those in January who feel as thought they have no choice but to join, so they’ll justify the cost.

Much like the car sales people in December who want to finish the year strong, most health clubs and gyms are in the same realm of cutting you a better deal in December, the last week or so of the month and year.

That window of time this year between 2018 and 2019 might be the best opportunity to join, get a fee or two waived, even if you don’t end up starting for real until January.

While it’s never an easy ask or subsequent endeavor to convince yourself as the consumer or other friends and family to wait and purchase after the holidays, you’ll save money as a reward for your patience.

Retail sales numbers notoriously take a hit in January mostly due to the exhaustion and financial “tap out” that most people experience after hundreds of thousands of dollars have just been spent.

The “belt tightening” in January of 2018 is a perfect example of this, with took a major hit last year after the holidays with a record drop of 0.3 percent, a falloff that hadn’t been seen since February of 2017, and against prognosis that January of 2018 would seen a 0.2 increase.^[10]

This sounds equal parts disheartening, but in actuality this allows for even better deals from retailers who might want to close out the last week of the year strong and understand that deals between December 26 and all of January are the best way to start of 2019, in this case, on the right track.

Waiting to buy isn’t always a popular sentiment at the end of December, heading into a new year, but that what would end up being hundreds saved might change your mindset even if it means going without during the season of giving.