Americans are planning to celebrate Christmas like it's 2007
- Americans plan to spend $862 on gifts this season, more than their planned spending at this time last year.
- This estimate is significantly higher than any estimate in November since 2007 - just before the financial crisis and recession.
Americans are planning on celebrating Christmas like it's 2007.
US consumers are planning on spending $862 on average on Christmas gifts this year, according to a survey conducted by Gallup in November.
That's a huge jump from the amount Americans said they planned on spending at this time last year - $752.
Americans haven't given such a high estimate for their holiday spending plans in any November since 2007 - just before the financial crisis and recession.
"Americans intend to spend more this holiday season than they have in a decade," Lydia Saad, senior editor at Gallup, wrote.
"Whether consumers wind up splurging or just being a bit more generous in their outlays than usual could be influenced by how the stock market and other US economic indicators perform in the coming weeks, as well as any action on Capitol Hill perceived as affecting the middle class," she added. "For now, however, consumers are in a spending mood, meaning that getting them into stores early could be critical to retailers' efforts to score big this holiday season."
Looking under the hood of the data, 34% of adults expect to spend $1,000 or more on Christmas gifts this year; 22% said they will spend between $500-$999; 15% said between $250-$499; and 18% said less than $250.
Nine percent say they don't celebrate Christmas or won't be spending anything, and 2% said they're unsure about spending plans.
Check out the full report from Gallup here »