If your wallet has been feeling a little too emotionally sound lately, learning how much the average American will spend on the holidays in 2016 ought to send it right back into that tailspin it rescued itself from last year. While the average American expected to spend $882 per person during the holidays in 2015 — already a mind-boggling sum (RIP, paycheck) — that amount has increased by $47 this year, for a whopping $929. That's roughly 124 Chipotle burritos that we are sacrificing to holiday decorations, parties, and gift-giving, y'all — and I'm sorry to say that there is nobody in my life that I love 124 Chipotle burritos amount. (JUST KIDDING, Oscar Isaac, you know you're bae.)
This project expense comes by way of the American Research Group, Inc., which conducted a survey of 1,100 random adults nationwide to gather the data for this average. Interestingly, though, we are not at an all time peak for holiday spending in the 32 years they've been conducting this survey. Americans spent $1,052 in the year 2001; comparatively, we only spent $417 in 2009 (that recession had us all like whoa). When you adjust for inflation, though, we're still not as close to hitting the all-time high of 2001 than it appears. Regardless, though, $929 is a veritable chunk of change.
If you haven't started your Christmas shopping yet this year, you're not alone — as of Nov. 20, when this survey wrapped, only 39 percent of Americans had gotten a leg up on it. Of course, that didn't take into account Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, which respectively garnered $3.44 billion and $3.45 billion in sales; odds are that affected the percentage.
Americans have steadily started shopping for the holidays later and later over the past few decades, which probably can be accounted for by the massive shift to online sales. Whereas 43 percent of people planned to purchase items online in 2004, now 55 percent plan to in 2016. And some of us, y'know, may or may not have just blacked out and bought half of the stock on ASOS's website the other night, which is certainly contributing to these mounting statistics. (#NOREGRETS.)
In any case, the amount Americans spend on holiday shopping is certainly on a steady rise, barring any weird things happening with the economy. So break out that budgeting plan now, everyone — 2017 You will be grateful for it.
Images: The WB; Giphy
