Study: People spend money to cope with the economy
About half of respondents admitted that they struggle to meet their basic needs and have to live paycheck to paycheck. FOX 5 NY’s Kendall Greene has the story.
NEW YORK – Shoppers looking for bargains and bargains just in time for the holidays are a dime a dozen.
“I got a few things for my sister and my mom, and I still need to get a few things for other family members,” one shopper told FOX 5.
“I have a 7 year old daughter so the entire list is hers and she made the list and wrote a letter to Santa,” said another shopper, and of course he has to deliver within his means.
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However, a new study from Intuit Credit Karma found that while nearly all Americans (96 percent) are concerned about the state of our economy, about 27 percent of Americans are spending underwater to deal with the crisis.
The problem has become increasingly acute over the past six months, with nearly a third of Americans admitting they have taken on more debt and spent more money during that period.
Shoppers ride escalators at the Macy’s flagship store on Black Friday in New York, U.S., Friday, November 24, 2023. An estimated 182 million people plan to shop from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, the most since 2017 N/A
Generation Z and Millennials are leading this trend, gaining sympathy from shoppers who have been there before.
“I understand that feeling, but you can’t go down that path. Things will come back, it’s not the end of the world,” said one shopper.
Paul Oster, the president of a credit management company, is concerned.
“This is the first year that I’m actually starting to panic a little bit for the average consumer because we’ve never gone down this path before,” Oster said.
He is primarily concerned with the consequences on the other side of the worrying trend.
About half of respondents admitted that they struggle to meet their basic needs and have to live paycheck to paycheck.
Shoppers at Macy’s flagship store on Black Friday in New York, U.S., on Friday, November 24, 2023. An estimated 182 million people plan to shop from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, the most since 2017, according to National Retail
“Whether it’s a buy now, pay later program or a credit card. Don’t do it because it will put you in a situation where you may not be able to get out of the hole,” Oster said.
He encourages those, regardless of their confidence in the economy, to resist the urge to spend and choose to budget better.
“There’s only a limited amount of money coming in. So much money is going out. You have to figure out how to balance that so that you’re able to start paying off your debt,” Oster told FOX 5.
To remedy the situation, Oster suggested ditching the costly monthly subscriptions to save on all sorts of extra costs and creating a short-term debt payoff plan.
Because that’s easier said than done, he recommended budgeting apps and websites like mint.com, NerdWallet and smartcredit.com.
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