K-Mart has recently been airing a new set of commercials focused not on selection, price, quality or anything relevant to the goods and services, but to bring attention to their layaway plan.
Perhaps you think layaway is benign, that it is no worse than a credit card. However, it indicates an important societal issue and is a very poor way to utilize your money to obtain something.
Layaway virtually disappeared during the 90s and 00s as almost everyone had access to gobs of credit that they did truly need or warrant. The return of layaway and its celebration in commercial form is a clear sign that America is not healthy. We're a nation of bad credit risks who cannot get our economy out of the toilet no matter what the talking heads on television say. It also means that Americans, even without access to credit, are making absolutely terrible decisions with what little money they do have.
Let us skip the long example and I shall state this clearly: there is nothing that layaway can do for you that you cannot do for yourself by simply stashing $25 dollars in a jar or your bank every couple weeks. Layaway is a service and it takes paperwork and time, Kmart and other companies are not doing anything out of the goodness of their hearts. You must put money down on your purchase, pay a fee to establish the layaway, and then make your monthly payments until it is fully paid off at which point you will get the stuff you purchased. Let me reiterate that, you do not get anything until you've paid it off in full.
One more time: there is no advantage to layaway because you do not get the object early AND you pay fees to set it up.
Done.
If you ever need something that badly don't let yourself get bamboozled. Ask family for a short loan or stuff your piggy bank. Do not waste your money on fees that get you nothing.
