Ishara Fernando
Put your holiday spending to great use this holiday season!
Are you in a click frenzy at the moment buying stuff destined for landfill?
Black Friday sales, gift buying, party hosting, holiday making … the opportunities for spending money are in abundance. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but it’s also the most expensive!
Despite this, recent research from MiQ Australia has seen a trend of people buying fewer products and doing more research before making purchases. One in seven people read online reviews and compare prices before buying.
If you’re one of those people who likes to be intentional about their shopping, you might be interested in the #Switch2Good campaign. This campaign encourages shoppers to make a switch to spending money over the holiday season with businesses who have purpose.
You’re shopping anyway, why not make it count? Here are some ideas for avoiding that Christmas guilt.
Give an Experience
It is estimated that $400 million is spent on unwanted gifts at Christmas time in Australia alone. Rather than buying things that will clutter cupboards, gather dust, and ultimately get chucked out – why not consider gifting an experience?
This type of gift can be useful, create fun memories and generate quality time. It all depends on what you’re gift recipient is into, but why not consider some of these options:
- Movie vouchers
- Spa day
- Yearly memberships
- Learn a new hobby classes
- A night away
Shop Local
Support local small businesses this Christmas to give back to your community. When you do this you know that your money is going directly into the local economy, helping other families and workers in your area succeed.
Another great benefit of shopping locally is that it lowers your carbon footprint as it generally requires less transportation of both you and the goods.
Mindful Shopping
The art of mindful shopping is about slowing down and carefully considering the shopping process. This might mean letting go of some habits and changing your approach to buying.
When you’re shopping, simply take a moment to stop and check in with yourself that your purchase really does fulfill what you are looking for. You could ask yourself some questions like this:
- Why am I buying this?
- Am I only buying this because it’s a good deal?
- Is this a gift I really want to give?
- Does this purchase align with my values?
- Do I feel good about this?
Putting thought and care into shopping and gift giving is time consuming, and so this is something you’ll need to get started on sooner rather than later so you don’t fall into the trap of last-minute-shopping-frenzy.
Join Doing Good Rewards & Give to Charity While You Spend
What if I told you there was a way to automatically give money to charity while you shop just by using an app?
The Doing Good app is free to download and use. Registered users can shop with participating retailers who offer discounts. You can then split the discounted savings between yourself and charity.
Download the ‘Doing Good’ app and sign up with code: COMMUNITY
Here’s an example of how it can work. You might know that this holiday season you’ll be buying more groceries than normal, and so in preparation, you purchase a Woolworths eGift card through the Doing Good platform.
On a $500 Woolworths eGift card you would receive a 4% discount that you can split between yourself and your chosen charity. This could look like $10 to you and $10 to charity OR you could generously give all $20 to charity. A perfect example of how being intentional with your spending can have an impact.
Check the app to see opportunities to shop local and give experiences like Hoyts and Events movie vouchers or Endota Spa vouchers.
Small steps create big change – especially if you continue to shop like this well into 2023.
Stay ahead of the trends and the competition
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