In the midst of midyear breaks, some of us are keen to get the hell outta here and avoid our cooler climate. Naturally, we are an adventurous bunch driven by fomo and yolo and the ever present ‘young, wild and free’ attitude. But according to a recent study conducted by Commbank, us prancing around the globe like excitable, carefree pixies is feeding into our spending attitudes. Yep, turns out that most of us are, quote unquote, “winging” our holiday budgets. And oh boy, aren’t we ever? As a nation, our holiday overspending equates to a whopping $4.6 billion. Seriously guys, wtf?! It appears that doing things half-assed goes against every fibre of our beings. So fyi, here’s where our sneaky debt’s are emerging from.. just incase you wanted to know.
We Overspend On Shopping
What’s even better than shopping in your own country? Shopping in a foreign one where all the styles are straight off the runway.. not six months behind. Hence why 60 percent of our cash gets dropped for fashion’s sake. It’s always cute when we go shopping, and because the clothes are cheaper, think we’re saving our money. Such a glass half full mentality, such innocence. While our intentions mean well, we just end up spending twice as much because we have no self-control.
We Spend A Tonne On Drinking
Hah, standard. Of course our dosh goes towards alcohol. In fact, 50 percent of it get blown on our favourite boozy pastime. But just to make you all feel a little better, food also counts in this statistic. It’s nice to see that we haven’t turned to a complete liquid diet, just yet.
We Live In Denial
Only one in three (36 percent) like to check on our spending each day, which means the other two thirds live life on the financial edge. Don’t get us wrong, denial is a blissful thing, but extremely counter-productive when it comes to spending money. This little tid-bit, including our lack of control when it comes to shopping and bevvies, means that we overspend our holiday budgets by a hectic $1554. Some of us (26 percent) don’t save before we venture overseas. Yes, you read right, they’re don’t save. And 21 percent don’t even have a budget. This is insane, why are we like this? And yet by the time we check our accounts we look shocked and offended by the lack of funds.
We Splurge Our Cash Last Minute
We like to end our holiday with an absolute bang it seems, with 67 percent of us admitting that we spend the most in this period. This is usually where your brain starts screaming ‘yolo’ and you argue with yourself that you’ve already spend ‘this much’, so what’s a little more? Day trips and experiences are usually to blame for such extravagance. But at least you have the memories.. right?
Image source: Touchstone Pictures, Universal Television and Bright/ Kauffman/ Crane Productions