Okay, so yesterday, I wrote that the economy had not yet affected my life directly. I probably sounded smug about having been steeped in the principles of provident and frugal living all my life. I didn’t mean to sound smug if I did, nor did I mean to imply that Mormons have the corner on the market of sound money management. They/we surely don’t.
Today though, all those statistics about the importance of the holiday shopping season to the economy have become real. The true gravity of the downturn presented itself to me in a rather shocking way yesterday. Brace yourselves.
I haven’t done much internet shopping over the past few months, mostly because I have kids in college. Yesterday, my favorite drool-over-but-only-shop-the-clearance-section catalog ever sent one of those “We miss you” cards. Usually, it’s a discount code. That would have been cool, but for this catalog, probably not enough to tempt me. Not this time. This catalog however, . . . w a i t f o r i t. . . in their desperation to just get me surfing their website, they sent a full-on 50 dollar gift card. No strings attached-it’s not a “spend 300 get 50 off” card, it’s just a big fat real one.
Bless the retailers’ hearts, but this makes my day. I love the challenge of spending ONLY the gift card with no overflow. I won’t be helping the economy AT ALL, but I will have fun.
Sorry if I sound smug.
My Red Door Days 