Inflation is still driving prices on everything from groceries to holiday gifts, but a new Debt.com survey shows many Americans aren’t as concerned about sticker shock as they were last year.
Debt.com polled 1,000 U.S. adults about their holiday shopping plans. More respondents (60%) than last year (54%) feel they will spend more on holiday shopping this year because of inflation. Among those respondents, 3 in 5 (54%) say they will use credit cards to cover the cost of holiday shopping.
Two-thirds (66%) of respondents are shopping earlier than last year. More than 1 in 3 (34%) started in November, and 15% started over the summer when inflation briefly dropped for the first time in two years.
Still, credit card debt increased 16.6% from just a year ago and Americans now owe over a trillion on their credit cards.
With average interest rates of more than 26% on major credit cards, and retail store cards at over 30% Dvorkin asserts, “Shoppers should ask themselves if they really need to buy gifts for everyone or instead, to buy gifts for a small core group of family and friends.”
