The Way We Spend: In The Winter Vs. Warmer Times

It’s snowing. Again. That’s good! The snow functions as a reminder that we are in the middle of deepest, darkest winter, and that whatever the groundhog says, we have at least six weeks of deepest, darkest winter still to go. Excellent reality check. Thanks, weather.

How do we cope? We buy things!

If we’re determined to enjoy the great outdoors despite the dismal atmospheric conditions, we buy old-fashioned, picturesque sleigh rides ($109 for “Family Fun” or $89 for a “Sweetheart Special”). Or a couple of hours at an ice skating rink which, with skate rentals, food, and such, can get pretty expensive. Or we buy lift tickets and go skiing, which is even more expensive, but more exhilarating than going round and round the same circle of ice.

If we’re more the inside type, we buy a year’s subscription to Amazon Prime so that we can binge on the misanthropic love of Daria and Jane.

We buy a respite from blizzards, temporarily, by slapping together a vacation someplace warm, the kind of travel that’s a vacation from as much as a vacation to. We buy our way out of inconvenience and discomfort, as long as we can afford to and sometimes even when we can’t, because the need feels so pressing. How do we get out of this cycle? Do we even want to?

Maybe winter spending is important. The winter holidays are generally the most expensive ones: Valentine’s Day and, of course, Xmas.

Winter holidays: As the largest gift-giving holiday of them all, the winter holidays account for nearly 20 percent of total annual retail sales for retailers. In 2013, holiday celebrants spent an average of $730 on gifts, food, decorations and more. After all was said and done, NRF found that holiday sales increased 3.8 percent to $602 billion. More than 90 percent of Americans celebrated Christmas, Kwanza or Hanukah last winter, the most-celebrated season of the year.

But those are about community building and demonstrating to other people that we value them. That’s a good long-term investment. So much of the rest of what we spend — on heat, on chocolate, on sweaters and blankets, even on gym memberships — is about demonstrating to our minds and bodies that we value them too.

If you’d like to cut back, though, there are of course guides out there to help you spend less during these endlessly frigid, depressing months. Lifehack.org has one here. It includes some evergreen pieces of advice, like “turn down the heat” and “don’t use credit cards,” and other banalities like “save gas money by driving less.” The list also offers some interesting, season-specific suggestions, though.

16. Use alternatives to heat

It is winter so if you’re turning down the heat, or turning off the heat, make sure you have an alternative to keep you warm. Extra blankets, heating pads and warm pajamas will all be able to keep you warm and you won’t even realize that you have the heat off! I used to warm up a rice bag every night and put it in my bed a few minutes before I got in it. By the time I would climb in, it was nice and cozy and I didn’t miss the heat at all.

20. Seal your windows and close your curtains

In an article by Mirror, a super simple winter trick is mentioned — closing your curtains! It’s well known that heat can easily escape and cold air can come in through windows. So what to do? Close your curtains, it will keep the cold on the outside and the warm on the inside, the curtains acting like a barrier. But if you find this isn’t working enough, I’ve gone so far as to use plastic to cover the windows. It’s a sealer that will also act like a barrier, so just go to your local hardware store — they’ll know where they keep it!

Also, cook. Take advantage of the fact that you don’t want to leave your house by staying inside and making food. Using the oven makes the kitchen feel cozy, rather than sweltering; plus, then you have (potentially) delicious comfort food within reach.

Stay in and watch movies is good advice, too. The movies that come out between January and March are rarely worth venturing to a theater for, so instead you can save money by hanging out on your couch and catching up on the best of the previous year’s Oscar nominees.

NOTE: Keeping in mind the controversy about Nationwide’s dead child Super Bowl ad, which got so heated that the company had to issue a statement only a couple of hours after it aired, I did some Googling around to see if people were more inclined to buy life insurance in the winter. Doesn’t seem like it, but let us know: do you find you’re more likely to make big, future-focused purchases in the colder months?

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