Okay, the holidays are over, and many are reeling from the sting of credit card bills, for the orgy that many Americans find themselves involved with, every December. Wisebread, reports, “According to Consumer Reports, shopping with credit cards during the holidays often leads to overspending by an average of 16%. This is part of the reason that the same Consumer Reports survey revealed that 13.6 million Americans were still paying off holiday purchases from 2009 in November of 2010.”
Lifehacker has an amazing info-graphic called “Holiday Misgivings: The Surprising Personal Economics Behind Holiday Gift-giving” that shows the gift valuation gap, the gift card valuation gap, and the gift gender gap. It’s a sobering look at the consuming that has become a part of every day life with little thinking of what all this consuming means for the planet, or how many people are living without work and with more food insecurity than ever before.
If, after digesting this graphic you think you’d like to reform your ways you might go to the library and look to borrow the book The Cheapskate Next Door by Jeff Yeager, a book about living below your means that is full of colorful tales and humor about frugality.
The Curious Autodidact 
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