I vote better than last year but not great. I admit I am biased and I only have my own perspective. I know too many hoarders, planners, fear mongers. These people, like myself, spent the last year or two changing their spending habits or having their habits suddenly become chic. Of the 20 or so friends and relatives that I actually know the details about their finances, here are my observations. It’s all anectodotal and they all pay their mortgages because I check, for fun of course.

-Some have recenlty bought the nicest cars they have ever bought, not trading in clunkers but paying new honda accord prices for barley used e-class or 5 series, mid range luxo rides, people who pay cash for a new honda every 5 years, now talking about 20″ rims, it’s odd but true.

-people bragging about zero credit card debt and having a cash allotment for this christmas, people who never had cash in the last two decades, at least not when the bar tab showed up, suddenly they have money.

-most got scared a year or two ago, never lost their job or had their income affected and are now finally feeling okay about buying something, especially now that it’s cheaper.

-and since someone mentioned televisions, this one struck a nerve with me. I’ve been fighting this forever and I’m about to pump some money into the economy. Last year or the year before i wrote about refusing to pay a grand or two to buy a tv, that my tube tv’s were fine. I ended up buying a cheapo 26″ lcd for my bedroom and a used, old school, dlp for the livingroom that I have to pull all the drapes and turn off all the lights to see. Now here I am, every day I get an e-mail from costco about 40 inchers for $500, even saw a sharp for 650 today, and other bigger ones for under a grand. I literally cannot see my television without my glasses because it’s so small and I don’t owe a freaking nickel to anyone other than my mortgage and I have the cash to buy bigger tv’s. With my new mcmansion, the bedroom tv is 21 1/2 feet away from my eyes (I just measured it). I have but a few pleasures in life, the nfl and the nba are two of them, I cannot read the score or the time left on the clock, even with glasses, because I am a cheap bastard. I’m done with being scared, I am sick of the spam and ammo posts, I have plenty of money and I can pay cash for big tv’s, and in the next 90 days, I’m gonna do it.

So that’s my justification, I think the savers and the scrimpers start breaking down and getting what they deprived themselves of, that they realize that this is is as bad as it is going to get and they survived, so it’s time to be able to see how much time is left on the clock, that it’s o.k. to come out of the bomb shelter, enough time has passed.

I could be wrong, the retail sector might only sell two big tv’s, but i can guarantee two, cause that’s how many I’m getting.

Lastly, I predict that Keurig, the company that makes those K-cup single cup coffee makers, will sell a shitload of them. That’s what I’m getting everyone on my christmas list that doesn’t already have one, I resisted those for a long time too, I broke down, now i love it.