While families around the nation are preparing for Thanksgiving this week, many are already planning for Christmas. The personal finance website WalletHub recently released its 2020 Holiday Budgets by City report as a guide to help shoppers stay on track during this holiday shopping season.
Jill Gonzalez is an analyst with WalletHub.
"We looked at 570 cities, Athens came in at 561st, so in the bottom ten numbers here, and a holiday budget on average is $375."
In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 50 percent of merchants believe holiday sales will increase somewhat or significantly compared to 2019. Gonzalez says for those wanting to come in at or below budget, or for those not wishing to shop at all, this is the year to do so.
"You definitely don't want to go over that. This is definitely, I think, a year that's taught us to save and to have a rainy day fund because who knows what could be in the future."
The company considered several factors to create the list.
"The five things that we studied were income, monthly expenses, and then that income to debt ratio, age, and savings to monthly expenses ratio."
Palo Alto, California - the home of Stanford University - was number one on the list coming in with a whopping budget of over $3,000. Albany, Georgia was number 570 with an estimated budget of $50.
For more information, or to view the entire list, visit: WalletHub.
