The holiday shopping push is on with shoppers this year hunting for deals early and keeping inflation top of mind.
“Inflation is crazy,” said Christopher Filius, a shopper.
Another shopper told NBC6 she was only shopping for the things they needed and planned to pay for them with cash.
Sticking to cash and a budget may be the best strategy to follow in a year where budgets have been stretched and the number of people asking for help with debt appears to be on the rise.
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“Usually this time of year we see a slowdown in November and December as people do their holiday shopping and just try to make it to the end of the year,” Thomas Nitzsche, a spokesperson for the non-profit credit counseling agency Money Management International, said. “The weird thing about this year is that so far we have really not seen any sort of a decrease.”
Nitzsche said they saw a 44% increase from last year in the number of people seeking help the week of Thanksgiving. On Cyber Monday, there was an 80% jump from 2022.
In Florida, the number of people seeking debt counseling with Money Management International so far this year is up 62% from last year.
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“You really have to hone in on those people who are the most vulnerable,” Nitzsche said. “And if you see more people sort of falling off that cliff, which is basically what we’re seeing right now, that’s obviously a red flag for folks.”
Some of the most vulnerable are younger adults, he said.
“We’ve seen about a 50% increase in the number of the youngest adults, those that are 18 to 29 seeking counseling, which is again really unusual,” Nitzsche said. “It’s going to be really interesting to see what happens over this next year as we see these demographics changing and we see the financials changing and the student loans are back in repayment. While inflation has cooled, prices on a lot of things haven’t really gone down.”
If you are struggling to pay your bills and you are feeling the pressure to spend money you don’t have this holiday season, get creative with your gift-giving. Consider doing a family-to-family gift or maybe taking a road trip as a family instead of exchanging gifts.
Nitzsche suggested talking to your lenders and asking for a lower rate. You might be able to get them to lower your interest rate, which in turn may help make your payment more manageable, he said.
