During the holiday season, many students return to their hometowns and spend time with their families or friends. Meanwhile, people can expect that there will be many expenditures like food, travel expenses and especially presents. However, it’s getting more difficult for students to afford things in the holiday season because of increasing tuition, and cost of living.

Students may face uncertainty as to whether they’ll even choose to participate in the holidays. “I’m not sure yet,” Alberto Cuevas, freshman CWU student, said. “I’m working here at Panda Express. I do get a little money, but it’s not that much… [If I had money, I would] probably buy some flowers for my mom.”

In a survey of six CWU students on their financial circumstances during this holiday season, participants were divided into two groups, one of people who answered they received money financial aid, and one of people who answered they received  money from families or friends.

In that same survey, the question “How comfortable do you feel financially?” was answered with a scale from 1 to 5.  All of the people who answered “Getting financial aid.” in the first question answered 2, which means they feel less secure financially. On the other hand, people who answered “Money from families or friends.” answered 3 or more, which means they feel more secure financially.

However, when we compare these groups in terms of “How much do you budget for presents each holiday season?” it is a little bit hard to find the linkage that works between their situations and the answers for that. Most people who feel less financially secure answered$0 or $100 but one of them answered $200. On the other hand, of the people who feel more financially secure some answered like $150, or $300 but one of them said $20 to $60, which is a comparatively small amount of money.

Now, we try to speculate the reason why some of them were different from the tendency by thinking about the perspective from the personal situations of each of them. One who feels comparatively financially insecure but can spend $200 answered, “How much would a certain gift really mean to the person?” to the question, “How do you determine your holiday budget? What do you consider?” 

From this, we can determine not only financial problems but also each student’s personal thoughts or priorities. The person who feels comparatively financially secure but spends around $20 to $60 answered “How much would a certain gift really mean to the person.” to the same question. From that, we can presume he or she might give some presents to only some special people and the budget was comparatively less than others.  Therefore, we have to consider personal situations but basically, we can say the financial situation affects the budget for holiday presents.