Holiday spending statistics

Tis the season to be spending. New research reveals that more than 227 million Americans plan to shop up a storm this holiday season.

Updated Dec 9, 2019

Fact checked

Are you planning to shop up a storm on gifts this holiday season? If so, you’re not alone: 89.29% of Americans plan to purchase presents this year.
There’s nothing quite like the holiday spirit. In fact, we plan to spend an average of $732.03 each on gifts this year. Let’s take a closer look …
Interestingly, men plan to spend more on gifts than women this holiday season, sitting at $809.01 compared with $671.54.

When it comes to generations, Gen X plans to spend the most this year at an average of $822.20 each. Up next are baby boomers at $578.81 followed by millennials at $470.39.

How do we plan to pay for these gifts?

Most gift-givers (52.3%) will be tapping into their savings to pay for some — or all — of their purchases. Just under half (42.6%) will swipe or dip their credit cards, and 5.5% plan to borrow from friends and family to pay for gifts this year. Some 3.2% of those we surveyed will look to the fast cash that comes from a personal loan, and 3.2% will take out a short-term payday loan for holiday spending.

Gender

Far more women than men this year will turn to their savings for gift buying — 56% compared with 47% respectively.
46% of men will pay with credit cards, compared to 40.1% of women who plan to rely on plastic.
2.2% of women said they plan to use a short-term payday loan to pay for gifts this year, compared with 4.6% of men, while 2.4% of women said they’ll take out a personal loan — lower than the 4.3% of men who plan to.
Borrowed money from friends or family will contribute to 4.9% of purchases made by women, compared with 6.4% of men’s.

Generation

Spending with savings is the most popular option for all generations, with millennials in the lead at 51.2%, followed by Gen Xers at 53.6% and baby boomers at 51.4%.
Just over half of all baby boomers (50.57%) plan to shop up a storm with their plastic this year, followed by 39.84% of gen X and 35% of millennials.
Millennials are the generation most likely to borrow money from family and friends at 9.7%, followed by 6% of Gen Xers and 2.4% of boomers.
The younger you are, the higher the chance that you’ll use a loan this holiday season. When it comes to short-term payday loans, 5.8% of millennials will purchase gifts with this quick cash, followed by 3.5% of Gen Xers and 1.4% of baby boomers.
As for personal loans, 4.8% of millennials’ will borrow and shop this way, followed by 4.1% of Gen Xers and 1.0% of baby boomers.

How do we compare to our friends in the Canada?

Canadians plan to spend an average $604.64 (CA$800) each this year on gifts, which is a far cry from the $732.03 (CA$968.55) being spent by Americans.

Creating your naughty and nice list in 2019

Buying presents for people over the holidays can be both tricky and expensive. If you’re after a quick way to not only get a rough idea of how much you should be budgeting for presents but to also get an idea of how much you should be spending on someone based on how naughty or nice they were, Finder is here to help with the Christmas Cost Corrector (CCC).

Didn’t like the comment your sister left on your last post on Insta? That’s one in the naughty column. Did your buddy buy you a round of drinks? There’s one for the nice column. Our calculator will give either plus or minus 5% from that person’s gift budget based on how many times they were naughty or nice.

Have a play around on the calculator below. If you’re having trouble with what’s constitutes being naughty or nice, there’s an example list below the calculator.

Christmas Cost Control Calculator

How much will you be spending on people this Christmas?

Annual income
Number of people you’re buying gifts for
Number of times person was naughty
Number of times person was nice

CALCULATE

Note: You’ll need to adjust naughty/nice figures and recalculate for each person you’re buying a gift

Use the calculator above to see how much you should be spending on gifts.

Your total Christmas present budget will be…

{{monthlytotal | currency}} if you’re a conservative gift giver
{{yearlytotal | currency}} if you’re an average gift giver
{{decadetotal | currency}} if you’re a generous gift giver

The naughty and nice factor

But not all gift recipients are created equal. Some are naughty. Some are nice. Play around with the naughty and nice inputs above and see how much you should be spending on that person this Christmas:

Family

{{monthly | currency}} for this recipient (conservative)
{{yearly | currency}} for this recipient (average)
{{decade | currency}} for this recipient (generous)

Friends

{{monthlyfriend | currency}} for this recipient (conservative)
{{yearlyfriend | currency}} for this recipient (average)
{{decadefriend | currency}} for this recipient (generous)

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Getting punitive with present points

Naughty	Nice
Made sarcastic comments about your appearance	Often says you look beautiful
Frequently late to social events	Remembered your birthday
Took your parking space	Always shouts the first round of drinks
Posts unflattering pictures/information about you on social media	Gave you great life advice
Frequently tells embarrassing stories about you	Is your work spouse
Rarely says thank you	Listens to your stories without interrupting
Tells you how much you overpaid for things	Waits to binge watch things with you
Spoilt the ending of Game of Thrones	Is your emergency contact
Still owes you money	Watered your plants when you were away
Tells boring stories	Vets all your potential dates

Our data is based on a recent online survey of 2,279US adults ages 18 to 91 commissioned by Finder and conducted by Pureprofile in October 2019. Participants were paid volunteers.
We assume the 2,279 participants in our survey represent the US population of 253.9 million Americans who are at least 18 years old according to the 2018 US Census Bureau estimate. This assumption was made at the 95% confidence level with a 2% margin of error.
The survey asked people how much money they plan to spend on gifts this holiday season and what proportion of funds do you plan to use to buy gifts this holiday season?
Canadian figures are based on data from a survey of 1,213 Canadian adults commissioned by Finder and conducted by PureProfile in October 2019.
We define generations by the age of participants at the time of the survey:
Millennials — ages 18 to 34
Generation X — ages 35 to 54
Baby boomers — ages 55+
Assumptions for the calculator
The calculator provides a plus or minus value of 5% of the total budget for each naughty or nice input. The three tiers for the gift-giving budget are based on 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5% of your annual salary. The calculator prices family members as twice as important as friends, with friends being allocated 50% less than the amount of a family member.
Data usage
Finder will follow up this article with an analysis of how much people are spending this Christmas, how many people they’re buying gifts for and how naughty or nice Canadians are based on the data input in the calculator. No personal information is captured during this process.

For media inquiries:

Allan Givens
Public Relations Manager
203-818-2928
allan.givens@finder.com

Nicole Gallina
Communications Coordinator
347-677-4931
nicole.gallina@finder.com

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Thank you for your feedback!

Allan Givens

Allan Givens is the PR Manager for Finder.com. He is a graduate of the University of Connecticut where he majored in sociology and women studies. His previous experience in finance includes brokering loans for small business and optimizing finance content for top sites. Allan now focuses on researching financial trends occurring in the US to better disseminate more informed financial advice.

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