{"id":4374,"date":"2025-12-08T15:10:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T20:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/?p=4374"},"modified":"2025-12-08T15:10:02","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T20:10:02","slug":"how-to-avoid-overspending-holiday-budget-advice-from-dr-chatterjee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/2025\/12\/08\/how-to-avoid-overspending-holiday-budget-advice-from-dr-chatterjee\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Avoid Overspending: Holiday Budget Advice from Dr. Chatterjee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In WalletHub\u2019s 2025 Holiday Budgets by City <a href=\"https:\/\/wallethub.com\/edu\/holiday-budgets-by-city\/16912#expert=Patrali_Chatterjee\">report<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=chatterjeep\">Dr. Patrali Chatterjee<\/a>, Chair and Professor of the Marketing department, offered expert guidance to help consumers navigate the financial pressures of the holiday season. Drawing on her research in consumer behavior and digital marketing, Dr. Chatterjee emphasized the importance of intentional planning, encouraging individuals to set a clear seasonal spending cap and create category-specific sub-budgets for gifts, food, travel, and charitable giving. She also highlighted the often-overlooked \u201chidden costs\u201d of the holidays, such as work-related events, shipping fees, taxes, and small but meaningful obligations to caregivers or teachers.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Chatterjee warned against impulse purchases influenced by digital promotions, recommending a 24-hour \u201ccooling-off period\u201d before buying items prompted by social media ads. She noted that economic uncertainty, shaped by tariffs, layoffs, and fiscal conditions, has increased consumers\u2019 value-conscious behavior, making \u201cquality over quantity\u201d a prevailing mindset this season. She cautioned families to approach credit cards and \u201cBuy Now, Pay Later\u201d plans with care, reminding them that future payments represent real reductions to their current budgets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In WalletHub\u2019s 2025 Holiday Budgets by City report, Dr. Patrali Chatterjee, Chair and Professor of the Marketing department, offered expert guidance to help consumers navigate the financial pressures of the holiday season. Drawing on her research in consumer behavior and digital marketing, Dr. Chatterjee emphasized the importance of intentional planning, encouraging individuals to set a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":4375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4378,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374\/revisions\/4378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}