Here’s why the holidays make you dumb about spending

Financial planner Barry Eckstein has heard a lot of extravagant spending stories. But when clients were chatting with him about the holidays a couple of years ago, he could not believe his ears.

The couple had bought a mink coat. Not just any mink coat, mind you—a mink coat for the their precious little Yorkie.

“It was custom-made, white, and cost a couple thousand dollars,” said Eckstein, of Wantagh, New York. “My initial reaction was: ‘Oh boy’.”

Canine couture might not be on everybody’s shopping list for holiday gifts. But the Furry Furrier is just one end of a spectrum. For the rest of us, even when we know we should not be spending so freely, we do it anyway. It is as if we turn our brains off in November, and then switch them back on in the New Year.

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