It’s that time of year again, where the spirit of the season can easily set us up for a visit from the ghost of Christas Past Due. Yep, I mean the bills that pile in every January, the lingering effect of very well intentioned activity around the holidays.
In the US, the day after Thansgiving is known as “Black Friday”. This day signifies the traditional start of the shopping season. I’m not sure, but I think this dates back to a practice started by Macy’s with their Thanksgiving Day parade. The last float in the parade was always Santa Claus, thus ushering in the holiday season.
Of course, now retailers start putting the holiday decorations out weeks (even months) before hand.
Black Friday is a term that’s based on the theory that retail shops operate at a financial loss for most of the year, and Black Friday, the start of the holiday season, is the first day the shop is profitable. It’s a reference to a standard accounting proceedure where losses are written in red ink and profits are signified by black inked entries.
For me, Black Friday signifies the credit card offers. I seem to get a tremendous amount of “interest free” and “no payments until the new millennium” offers in the mail.
And it’s compounded by the television commercials. “No interest and no payments for a year” usually means that the payment hit you next year, right in the middle of the shopping season.  But it gets worse. Usually these offers mean that there are no interest payments for the year, but the interest will accrue. And, if you don’t pay the balance in full before the first payment hits, the interest is compounded.
Albert Einstein called compound interest “the most powerful force in the universe”.
Stay tuned for the worst kind of Christmas Credit Cards…
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