The year 2017 is almost at the threshold. Do you spend a lot of money during the New Year celebrations? What are your plans for the New Year? Do you shop too much during the New Year?
We Japanese have special foods and decorations we must have during New Years, so we do spend for our New Years celebration. I like to have some other celebrations like toasting so I buy for it too. There are different colors for good luck and to draw wealth for the New Year too that we like to have for our table on New Year's day. We spend for the New Year before the day and enjoy the day. We don't play fireworks so we save on that expense. We get everything prepared and have all the decorations up as needed and go to church too for our holy amulets for our home and self. There is a lot of things we do for New Years and it's a fun tradition we pass down from generation to generation. One more thing we do for the New Years is do our cleaning to greet the New Years with a very clean home. Thus we buy economically like going to Chinatown getting vegetables and decorations for our New Year's celebration. I found today at Chinatown kadomatsu to put by the threshold of our doorway for just $3. Our markets are selling it for 9.79 on sale so the savings are huge at Chinatown and so fresh kadomatsu too! Luckily our markets chip in to put what we need on sale too!
No, it would be like any other day of the year...not less or more important. As for shopping, I always look for good deals, and being a festive time there'll be many of them now. I do take this opportunity, but that has little to do with new year celebration. However, fresh start of a counting system definitely brings joy around, and we'd like to soak in that.
As usual my wife has to purchase the foods which she always uses for her 12 fruits tradition of putting them at the top of our dinning table. She believes that by accumulating such number of 12 fruits may mean the 12 months of prosperity for our family. I don't have to argue with her. I just support her for that belief. I think that is the only thing that we have to spend much budget for that.
I look for lightning deals on e-commerce websites during the new year season. We usually have a family get together at one place and we spend the night watching a movie or going for a long ride. We order ice cream and cakes to celebrate the new year. I personally focus more on savings rather than spending money on unnecessary things. Yes, celebrations are important and they do not come often but spending a bomb on them is not necessary.
No, to me it's like any other day really. I will probably buy a snack or two to eat with my daughter and that's it. I do spend a bit afterwards as there are great deals. I only purchase things I was really looking forward to purchasing waiting for them to be on sale.
In the olden days, we spend a lot for firecrackers and fireworks. But in the last 5 years, we realized that we were like throwing away money. Our budget for the firecrackers sometimes reach $200 and it's only for 1 night. For the new year's eve festivities, what we use now are makeshift trumpets and other things that make noise like drums. Aside from less cost, it is safer.
I get excited around the countdown but not enough to spend blindly. I am not particular about getting new clothes or stuff nor are there any New Year tradition that needs real spending. It used to be a bit different few years back when a beach party or night out was a must. However, its been quiet for some years now.
I try to plan the most cheap New Years possible because Christmas already has drained most of my money. I usually invite a few select people, purchase a bit of fireworks and that's about it. After Christmas, you're also physically drained so what I do is purchase meat, sausage, and chicken so that we can grill around a fire instead of having to cook a big feast. It's fun, pretty cheap, easy, and delicious.
My family taught us not to spend money on New Year's day so that all throughout the year we will not be spending too much. This is some sort of a belief, but really it will depend on the circumstances to come and unexpected expenses.
I do not spend too much on New year eve actually, I spend money on a budget and I am sure that this will have such charming time as it.
