Many of my fellow PF bloggers pride themselves on how many no spend days can have a month. In the newspapers, the past few days there has been a warning that instead of the UK having a good old recession we might be sliding into deflation. What the heck is deflation you ask, well I did did too, so here is the definition from Ask.com
Deflation occurs when prices are declining over time. This is the opposite of inflation; when the inflation rate (by some measure) is negative, the economy is in a deflationary period.
Basically it is where people stop buying things in the hope that prices will go down further, so people are only buying what they need to survive then the economy grinds to an ugly, hard to start up again halt.
Japan was in a state of deflation, which began in the early 1990’s and lasted a decade. The people of Japan just stopped trusting banks and their government. They literally start hiding their money under their mattresses. Here is an article in the Telegraph that explains it better than I can. This little history lesson has made me start thinking about people trying to have a certain amount of no spend days a month.
I am not saying go out and max out your credit card that you have been working extremely hard to clear, but is it good that we are trying to halt our spending altogether? I have written about my feelings on expensive coffee (don’t do it) and I also don’t like cheap throwaway clothing but is no spending days bad for the greater good of the country’s economy?
I know it is not good for the country to have its citizens to be in debt and possibly risking their homes, their relationships and even their mental health but should we all go out and spend a bit this Christmas? Do you participate in No Spend Days? Me, personally, find total no spend days difficult to do more than a day or two a week. Are you able to do more than a couple of no spend days a week? Do you really think they are a good thing?