Halloween has passed; you survived Thanksgiving, and now… Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming! And with that, so is a lot of spending.
Every single year, families will spend – and, for some, arguably waste – hundreds or thousands of dollars on toys. It doesn’t help that Christmas is conveniently tucked between Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Boxing Week either.
Forbes reported that in 2016, the average parent was prepared to spend over $1,700 over the holiday season. Personal finance writer, Maya Kachroo-Levine, highlighted how much of that sum was going towards their kids.
“Parents are predicted to spend $495 per child this year, which is nearly $100 more than they spent [in 2015].” (1)
A Gallup poll reports that U.S. adults plan on spending around $885 on gifts in 2018. You can find the range of their findings below: (2,3)
33% expect to spend at least $1000 on gifts
22% expect to spend between $500 and $999
29% expect gift spending to be between $100 and $499
3% plan to spend less than $100
Related: How Getting into the Christmas Spirit Early Affects Your Mental Health
Those are quite startling numbers…
A Huge Pile of boxed gifts in red and gold packaging
That’s why Oliver James, Britain’s best-selling psychological author, thinks parents should be spending all that Christmas money on holidays instead. He argues, in fact, that children either do not want or value most of the gifts they receive.
“The whole business of providing material commodities for kids – in ever more expensive forms as they get older – is entirely 100 percent, about propping up the industry that profits from it,” James says.
“On the other hand, family holidays are definitely valued by children, both in the moment and for long afterwards in their memory. So if you’re going to spend money on something, it’s pretty clear which option makes more sense.”
A psychology professor at Cornell University, Thomas Gilovich, has conducted a number of eye-opening studies about that very subject. He has concluded that humans derive happiness not from things, but experiences.
Our newest fat-burning dessert recipe book just released and we’ve reserved a free digital copy for you! Click the button and simply let me know where you want us to email it and you’ll have it in your inbox today…
Scientific Proof That Experiences Mean More Than Possessions
In a 2012 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Gilovich and research partner T.J. Carter wanted to find out what kind of purchases make us most happy. (6)
When it came to purchasing experiences versus possessions, they learned that people felt more regret about not attending concerts, for example, as opposed to not buying a piece of furniture.
Gilovich’s 2014 study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology found that what holds our social lives together is our experiences. During his research, he found that experiential purchases:
Enhance social relations more readily and effectively than material goods
Form a bigger part of a person’s identity
Are evaluated more on their own terms and evoke fewer social comparisons than material purchases
