The December air just has that thing that gets the rational brain cells going on vacation when they should be putting on a shift bigger than our diamond marketers.
December is the most loved month in the calendar. This is mainly because when this month rolls along for a good number of the citizenry they will get 3 stashes of money. There’s the monthly salary from your employer. There’s also the December bonus for those who work for serious companies with serious money. And there’s also the Motshelo club money if your treasurer does not live in a rat-infested house. Rats have this uncanny ability to identify Motshelo records and eat them. Fingers of some unscrupulous Motshelo treasurers also tend to develop sticky properties and their Mathematical abilities might desert them around this time. That is why around this time there’s a spike in calculator sales. Motshelo is a no-frills investment and calculators are the major audit tools.
Most of us are in a silent race to see who will spend this stash of money faster. There are holidays to go to. There are friends and hangers-on to please and there are facebook ‘what’s on your mind’ spaces to fill with ‘situation right now’ pictures. All this takes money and there seems like an angel of destruction has been unleashed on your bank balance.
The December bonus seems like your reward for surviving an entire year of work, and your ticket to pretending you’re rich for about 72 hours. You tell yourself, "This time I’m being responsible. I’ll save it!" But within minutes, you've bought a new TV, upgraded your phone, and treated yourself and friends and their friends to rounds and rounds of drinks at a franchised operation which you hardly ever frequent. By the time you get around to paying your bills, your bonus has mysteriously vanished like a dishonest voter after losing an election race.
December spending is like playing a game of "how much can I put on my debit card before it explodes?" You start out with a budget, but then somehow end up buying gifts for people you barely know, like your neighbor's cousin's dog walker. It’s the one month where "treat yourself" turns into "treat yourself to a 20% off sale on things you don't need but somehow think you can't live without." And by the time the New Year rolls around, your bank account looks like it went on its own holiday vacation... to those US dollar-tariffed Okavango Delta camps, without telling you. It is the month where you open your bank account and it's like a sad, empty fridge. Suddenly, every small purchase feels like a major life decision—do you really need that P5 tripe, or can you just stare at the empty plate for emotional support? You start January with the financial wisdom of someone who’s learned nothing, except that next year, maybe you'll be careful not to dominate the world through reckless consumerism.
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Thulaganyo Jankey is a Rapporteur and training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email [email protected]
