Billionaire Jeff Bezos advises people to be careful with their money this holiday season

midian182

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In context: We're just over one week away from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which means retailers are getting ready to start (or have already started) their discount sales. Amazon sees billions of dollars worth of purchases over this period, so it's somewhat surprising to hear the company's founder and Chief Executive, Jeff Bezos, advising people to be frugal.

In an interview with CNN this week (via The Telegraph), Bezos was asked if he thought consumers should "batten down the hatches" in response to the global economic downturn. "My advice to people is take some risk off the table," Bezos said. "If you're an individual and you're thinking about buying a new large-screen TV, maybe slow that down. Keep that cash, see what happens. Same thing with a refrigerator or a new car, or whatever."

Given the spiraling inflation, rising energy costs, and constant reports of companies laying off thousands of staff, it's easy to see Bezos' point. But not everyone might appreciate being told to spend less money by the fourth-richest person in the world, who has a fortune of $120 billion—though he does plan to give most of it away.

Many shoppers are already tightening their purse strings as the cost of living rises. Combined with the post-lockdown hangover, reluctance to splash out on expensive, unnecessary purchases has impacted the phone and PC/hardware industries, among others.

With the sales events and holidays, the fourth quarter is Amazon's biggest, but the company has lowered expectations for Q4 to between $140 billion and $148 billion—much less than analysts expected $155 billion—representing growth of around 2 to 8%. Amazon saw 9% growth during last year's fourth quarter.

Amazon is also tightening its belt. In addition to business-wide cost-cutting exercises implemented by CEO Andy Jassy, the company is planning to lay off 10,000 office staff. That's slightly less than the 11,000 staff Meta is letting go, but more than the 3,700 Twitter is losing. Lyft, Microsoft, Snap, Tesla, and Robinhood are just some of the other tech firms reducing their headcount this year.

The flip side to the argument, of course, is that if you're determined to buy a new TV, graphics card, laptop, or whatever, purchasing it at a discount during the sales makes more sense than spending more at a later date. Just don't tell Jeff.

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Just imagine what you could buy....... and then don't buy it.

This way you can increase your savings beyond imagination. If every day you don't buy stuff worth $10,000 at the end of the year you'll save $3,650,000. And that's how you get rich.
 
This is good advice for the majority of people that spend during Black Friday.

I see far too many “if only payday was this week” posts on deal sites…

The economy is not getting better anytime soon. Wait an see approach should be taken by all of us especially those working in any market that deals with interest rates
 
Come on Jeff, you are so funny, you know that?!
and please, delete all the links from fake hardware review websites pointing to Amazon, Internet is full of those.
 
This is good advice for the majority of people that spend during Black Friday.

I see far too many “if only payday was this week” posts on deal sites…

The economy is not getting better anytime soon. Wait an see approach should be taken by all of us especially those working in any market that deals with interest rates

People financially reckless enough to need his advice are going to ignore it, and the rest of us don't need it.
 
Can we stop pretending financial advice from rich people is somehow invalid, or they "can't relate to us poor people"?
Rich people who managed to get rich themselves clearly knew something about money, otherwise they would not have managed to get rich.
It doesn't invalidate their knowledge, or the advice.
 
Can we stop pretending financial advice from rich people is somehow invalid, or they "can't relate to us poor people"?
Rich people who managed to get rich themselves clearly knew something about money, otherwise they would not have managed to get rich.
It doesn't invalidate their knowledge, or the advice.
My apologies to you, but as I see it, they only thing rich people know is how to get people with less money to give their money to them - by any means necessary even if that includes lies, deceit, and exploitation.
 
I put anything I purchase on a credit card, then pay it off when the bill comes.
IF you must use a credit card, because you "can't pay it" with cash, then you don't
need to purchase it anyway.

Sometimes you can use a credit card to your advantage. AmEx pays for a trip to the grocery store for me once a year.

I use my AmEx card to pay for groceries and pay it off over the course of the month. I get 3% or maybe it's 5% back on grocery purchases, up to $6000 worth of groceries in a year.
3% of 6000 = $180
5% of 6000 = $300

Like I said, I'm not sure what cash back percentage it is off hand, but even if I it's only $180 back that's about a trip to the grocery store for me. Basically, AmEx pays for 1 trip to the grocery store for me every year.
 
Sometimes you can use a credit card to your advantage. AmEx pays for a trip to the grocery store for me once a year.

I use my AmEx card to pay for groceries and pay it off over the course of the month. I get 3% or maybe it's 5% back on grocery purchases, up to $6000 worth of groceries in a year.
3% of 6000 = $180
5% of 6000 = $300

Like I said, I'm not sure what cash back percentage it is off hand, but even if I it's only $180 back that's about a trip to the grocery store for me. Basically, AmEx pays for 1 trip to the grocery store for me every year.
Try a double cash Citi card, its 2% on everything, no exclusions, and accepted everywhere.
 
My apologies to you, but as I see it, they only thing rich people know is how to get people with less money to give their money to them - by any means necessary even if that includes lies, deceit, and exploitation.
So they know that "a fool and his money are soon parted" - how is that invalid knowledge?
And why does them being less than great people mean that the information isn't valid?
 
Can we stop pretending financial advice from rich people is somehow invalid, or they "can't relate to us poor people"?
Did you ever watch that interview with Bill Gates and he was asked "what's in your fridge?" and he legitimately couldn't answer? Do you reckon Bezos is any different?
Rich people who managed to get rich themselves clearly knew something about money, otherwise they would not have managed to get rich.
The vast majority either lied, stole or manipulated to get where they are today. Bezos being a good example of all three. There is also definitely an element of luck to it. Hard work doesn't pay off like your told it does when you're a child.
It doesn't invalidate their knowledge, or the advice.
In my world, I don't care how rich someone is, I care about who the person is, if that person can't answer me simple things like, what's in their fridge, why they're friends with pedo's or why do they not pay their staff properly.

It's hard to take them seriously when dishing out money advice. They live in a completely different world to me.
 
My apologies to you, but as I see it, they only thing rich people know is how to get people with less money to give their money to them - by any means necessary even if that includes lies, deceit, and exploitation.
My apologies to you, but as I see it, they only thing rich people know is how to get people with less money to give their money to them - by any means necessary even if that includes lies, deceit, and exploitation.

Good example of how lesser people think about these things. Its always someone else's fault… rich people are crooks (yes, some are), and I am poor only because life is so unfair..,, nothing to do with me being lazy or stupid or both.
 
General rule of thumb... if its sold at a black Friday sale "discount" it just means it's slightly closer to what it was suppose to be sold for in the first place.
 
Did you ever watch that interview with Bill Gates and he was asked "what's in your fridge?" and he legitimately couldn't answer? Do you reckon Bezos is any different?
I couldn't answer what's in my damn fridge half the time. "Wait, did that expire? Did I eat those leftovers or are they still there? Did I eat it, or did my partner?"
Heck, it's not uncommon for me to get home to something I've never heard of in the fridge because she saw it and thought it looked interesting to try. That's not a metric of anything.
 
Did you ever watch that interview with Bill Gates and he was asked "what's in your fridge?" and he legitimately couldn't answer? Do you reckon Bezos is any different?

The vast majority either lied, stole or manipulated to get where they are today. Bezos being a good example of all three. There is also definitely an element of luck to it. Hard work doesn't pay off like your told it does when you're a child.

In my world, I don't care how rich someone is, I care about who the person is, if that person can't answer me simple things like, what's in their fridge, why they're friends with pedo's or why do they not pay their staff properly.

It's hard to take them seriously when dishing out money advice. They live in a completely different world to me.
Agree with everything you said except "luck". I'd replace it with corruption. "There is also definitely an element of corruption to it."
 
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