Why I’m Not Boxing Day Shopping This Year

It’s an annual tradition in Canada for people to brave the cold and wait for hours on the day after Christmas. That’s because December 26th is Boxing Day, a day when all the retailers in land put their leftover products on sale. Everyone from Best Buy to Walmart, Chapters to Athlete’s World has a Boxing Day (or even Boxing Week) sale, clearing out as much of their inventory as possible so that they can make way for the new stock coming in the new year. As a result, consumers gravitate to the malls in droves, trampling over little old women so that they can score 10% off on a pack of socks. As if they didn’t already get enough socks for Christmas from similar little old women (you might know her as grandma).

I’ll admit that I’ve partaken in this tradition on more than one occasion. After circling for hours looking for a parking spot, standing in line to get into any store, rummaging through the pile of stuff to find anything worth buying, waiting at the cash register queue, and finally emerging out the other end with a shopping bag and added debt, the net result is typically a fairly minor deal. It feels good to save twenty bucks on a pair of jeans, but you’ve got to wonder if it’s all worth it, especially in this age of online shopping.

So, why am I not Boxing Day shopping this year. It comes down to five critical factors that separates Boxing Day this year compared to years gone by.

1. Nothing to Buy: During my high school (and even university) days, Boxing Day represented the best day to find some new clothes, whether it be a pair of sweatpants or yet another t-shirt. I could typically find jeans for half price and there would be enough stock that the shopping was worthwhile. Now that I work from home, I’m not in need of new clothes nearly as often; after all, no one really sees me at my home office, so there’s no need to maintain appearances. Sure, there are items on my wish list, but there’s nothing that I feel I need this year. No need to brave the crowds.
    
2. Already Got It: I guess it’s not completely true that there’s nothing for me to buy this year. There is, but I already got the stuff that I really wanted anyways. John Chow told me about the Dell deal on a Garmin nuvi 250 portable GPS navigation device, so I grabbed that online (with free shipping) a couple days ago. I also bought the Wii Zapper and Guitar Hero III already, so need to buy those either.
    
3. Save More At Home: If I had a conventional 9-to-5 kind of job, there’s a good chance that I would have today as a day off and so I wouldn’t really have anything to do nor would I have a legitimate opportunity to make some money. As a freelance writer, however, I can work today if I choose to, earning a few extra bucks instead of lining up to save the same few bucks. I don’t know about you, but I prefer sitting in front of my keyboard than standing in line, fighting off the hordes of value-conscious shoppers.
    
4. No Major Deals: With the beauty of the Internet, we all have the opportunity to peek at the Boxing Day flyers several days in advance. Browsing through these the past couple of days, there weren’t any deals that jumped out at me, telling me that I absolutely had to take advantage. For example, I saw a two-pack of 2GB SD cards for about $30. That’s a decent deal, but not one worth lining up for. I also saw a few Wii games on sale, but again, it was only like $10 or $20 off. This goes back to reason #1 and #2, because there’s nothing that I absolutely must have.
    
5. Sleeping In: I work hard enough, just let me sleep in. Sleep is good.

I could try to save a few bucks on Boxing Day, but I’d rather save myself for CES in Las Vegas when I might score the best deal of all: free food, free booze, and free swag.