Chri$tma$

[annuin]

There's something very disturbing about the Christmas ads on tv for BestBuy (electronics store)... where you can get financing until 2006 on your purchases now.

Because yeah, I really want to be paying for Christmas 2004's presents in fucking 2006.

This country is insane, and it's no small wonder that credit card debt is a way of life here.

Comments

[trejkaz.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about the future is that in the future, I have more money than I have now... even if the prices on whatever I bought would have plummeted through the floor by that time.

Any form of interest would blow the usefulness away, though...

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Well, often it's interest free, which would help. But when you consider the depreciation on electronics these days...

Personally I don't think you should be buying enough gifts to put you in debt until after the next Christmas season. Yeah it sucks when times are lean, but adding a millstone around your neck just to appease friends and family is just ridiculous.

And I doubt most people actually have more money later than they do now ;) here at least... spiralling circles of debt.

My dad would use the interest free deals to haggle. If they can give someone else interest free for X months, how much discount will they give him if he pays cash. And it worked too.

[trejkaz.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good strategy. If a credit card happened to have 10% interest p.a. (hell, my Amex had 13+%, it was insane), it should be trivial to haggle 10% off the price of anything in the store. And then it's a comparison game. Will your payrise be more than 10%? Unlikely. But if it would be, then the loan might be better. But of course, there is always that risk of losing the job, and at the end of the year having no way to pay it off at all.

Depreciation will always be a bitch with electronics. If you buy the unit in a year, it might be 20% cheaper (not through depreciation, technically, but due to a decrease in demand causing a fall in price.) If you buy the unit now, by the time that year's up, it's depreciated 20% anyway (assuming your accountant wants to do the particular piece of equipment at 20%. 20% is nice for TVs but rarely applicable to computers and similar things which tend to look more like 40%.) The difference is just that for a year, you had use out of a piece of equipment you wouldn't have otherwise had.

But of course, you're right that it's really pathetic to use this sort of thing as Christmas marketing. People have enough trouble with credit cards around Christmas without needing to go into debt with electronics stores in the name of Santa.

These interest free deals are a legitimate option, but generally the idea is to plan ahead, and it's a cold day in hell (I suppose that might as well describe the US during Christmas anyway) when someone actually plans ahead for Christmas presents.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

These interest free deals are a legitimate option, but generally the idea is to plan ahead, and it's a cold day in hell (I suppose that might as well describe the US during Christmas anyway) when someone actually plans ahead for Christmas presents.

Heh... I think last-minute or instant gratification is a way of life.