You can avoid overspending on the holidays. Here’s how.

您可以避免在节假日过度消费。以下是方法。

Post Reports

2025-11-25

22 分钟
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year and, if you’re not careful, it could be the most expensive. The day after Thanksgiving has historically been the official start of the holiday shopping season, but we’ve been seeing Black Friday deals advertised earlier each year. Moreover, Americans are increasingly concerned about the rising costs of food, housing and health care. Throw in the longest government shutdown in U.S. history and recession-level layoffs in the private sector and money might be tight for many households this holiday season. Personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary joins host Colby Itkowitz and explains how you can avoid overspending on gifts and holiday celebrations. Singletary gives us permission to scale back for the holidays and prioritize togetherness over consumerism. Today’s show was produced by Charla Freeland. It was edited by Reena Flores and Ted Muldoon and mixed by Sean Carter.  Subscribe to The Washington Post here.
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  • Can I tell you a funny Black Friday story?

  • This was years ago.

  • My dad and my brother, there was like an electronic store in our town called Circuit City.

  • I don't know if that was a chain.

  • Oh, yeah.

  • That was a chain.

  • I'm old enough to remember Circuit City.

  • I remember Circuit City before Circuit City went out of business.

  • So Circuit City was having some crazy, like,

  • first 20 people in the door get a laptop for $200, which was like a great deal.

  • My brother and my dad camp out all night, like.

  • Get in line at like 10 p.m.

  • And so everyone's like in line and they're orderly and but the minute those doors open is crazy mad rush,

  • right?

  • So now there's no order So my then 15 year old brother goes up to the manager and says you have violated the fire code and

  • if you don't give the people that were actually the first 20 in line these laptops I'm calling the fire department.

  • Wow.

  • And they did it.

  • And they did it.

  • Oh, I love your brother.