6 Smart Purchases to Make After Christmas for Maximum Savings
43 minutes ago
Waiting out the frenzy of Christmas sales could actually save you a lot of money. We talked to a trio of savvy shoppers to learn which items you should wait until after Christmas to buy to save some cash.
Shopping after Christmas will mean waiting longer for a particular item, but the money you save on that product will make the wait worthwhile. You’ll see a lot of deep discounts on products ranging from electronics to clothing, and just about every other retail item that is updated in the January inventory turnover.
You will need to plan ahead to make the most of post-holiday sales. Timing major purchases for after-Christmas sales can yield huge savings if you have a list of target items.
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“I always tell people that if they have the money and the storage space, shop with the entire next year in mind,” suggests Josh Elledge of SavingsAngel.com. “Rock-bottom pricing is available on everything from electronics to clothing to jewelry.”
Read the full article here.
–Andrew Beattie
Got a Big Pile Of Unwanted Stuff to Send Back? You’re Not Alone—It’s Return Season
1 hr 31 min ago
Gather up the itchy socks and unwanted accessories. It’s return season.
Returns tend to rise during the last days of December, and Adobe Analytics data suggests the spike may be even pronounced this year. Returns this month were running about 2.5% below where they were midway through the holiday season in 2024, according to Adobe, which analyzed millions of online transactions—so we’re either getting better at selecting presents, or slower at sending back unwanted stuff.
It’s likely the latter, according to Schorr Packaging, a shipping material and services firm that called returns “practically a holiday tradition.”1 Half of shoppers return gifts within a week, while roughly another quarter do so within two or three weeks, according to consumer surveys Schorr conducted.
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The rise of online shopping—and expansion of flexible return policies during the pandemic—have contributed to higher return rates, the National Retail Federation trade group said. Companies on average expect 16% of their 2025 sales to be returned, according to the NRF and Happy Returns, a UPS company that facilitates returns. That’s down slightly from last year, but double the 8% return rate in 2019, the groups said.
Despite the growth of e-commerce, many Americans take a traditional approach to returns. Bringing unwanted items back to a store is the most common return tactic, according to Schorr, ahead of using third-party drop-off sites and mailing back products.
Read the full article here.
–Sarina Trangle
Expecting a Big Raise in 2026? Don’t Count on It
2 hr 19 min ago
Employers in the year ahead are likely to remain reluctant to embark on any major hiring sprees, and the lack of demand for workers should serve to keep a lid on pay increases.
Several major forecasts and surveys of employers largely call for the continuation of the job market’s recent trends, in which hiring has slowed to a crawl compared to the last few years. Employers have been reluctant to hire too many workers, but also wary of mass layoffs, as economic uncertainty caused by unpredictable tariff policies has made planning future expansions difficult.
U.S. employers plan to give raises averaging 3.3%, a tenth of a percentage point lower than in 2025, according to a survey by payroll software company Payscale.
U.S. employers plan to give raises averaging 3.3%, slightly lower than in 2025, according to a Payscale survey.
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Forecasters at jobs website Indeed expect the job market to remain in low gear over the next year, with job openings stabilizing rather than continuing to decline, and unemployment rising, but not too much. None of that would push employers to give out huge pay raises like they did in 2022 when labor was in high demand, and the economy was reopening from the pandemic.
Wage growth, as measured by salaries advertised in job postings, has cooled down over the last year, according to Indeed.
Read the full article here.
–Diccon Hyatt
Stock Futures Little Changed to End Holiday-Shortened Week
3 hr 13 min ago
Futures contracts associated with the Dow Jones Industrial Average pointed down 0.1%.
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S&P 500 futures were fractionally lower.
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Nasdaq 100 futures were fractionally higher.
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