Black Friday buzz: why discounted wants wreck financial plans

IN JANUARY, when South Africans sat at kitchen tables, bank statements spread out like pieces of a puzzle, they dreamed of a disciplined year.

- JOHN MANYIKE

They budgeted. They promised themselves to save more and spend less.

Did anyone in their spreadsheets, budgeting plans, vision board, or New Year's resolution include Black Friday? Quite unlikely.

Yet, as the year winds down and fatigue gnaws at the willpower needed to see financial plans through to the end of the year, Black Friday rises like a glittering mirage in the desert of November. It promises relief, rewards, and once-in-a-lifetime deals. But for many households, it behaves less like a festive opportunity and more like a silent wrecking ball swinging straight into their yearlong financial plans.

Black Friday did not arrive in South Africa as a saviour of consumer pockets, but rather as a powerful disruptor of financial discipline.

Black Friday was not transposed into the South African economy to save us. It has, in many ways, become a destroyer of financial plans. What makes it even more dangerous is its timing. It arrives right at the end of the year, when people need to hang on just a little bit longer to see their financial goals through.