TAMPA, Fla. — The holiday season is winding down. If your bank account looks particularly empty, you're not alone.
Mastercard SpendingPulse released new data showing holiday sales rose 7.6% this year.
Shopper Cheryl Carnivale said she made sure to prepare this year.
"I do feel like it didn't hurt as much. But I generally, in my budget, have several hundreds set aside for this month in case I run across a last-minute gift. And a lot of times, I'll buy things and save them for the next year," she said.
MasterCard found a change in what people bought: A 4.4% increase in apparel sales and a 15.1% increase in restaurants. They also found a roughly 5% decrease in spending on electronics and jewelry.
Although Mastercard reported an increase in spending, Consumer Bankruptcy Attorney Reed Allmand said that doesn't necessarily mean there were more items bought.
"When you're seeing the prices of a lot of items that used to be staples in your home are now sometimes twice as much as what they were a year or two years ago because of inflation, that really starts to add up because wages have not increased," Allmand said.
Allmand said now is the time to focus on your debt and budgets if you spent extra over the holidays, especially if inflation rates stay high.
"The main way they combat that is with the rate hikes. So the interest rate hikes and those hikes affect everything. From what the credit card company set as interest rates, to new home loans, to car loans. Then also, you know that puts more pressure on your credit score."
He added that the best practice is an ironclad budget moving into the new year.
The National Retail Federation will release its holiday shopping figures next month. It expects sales growth of nearly half of what we saw a year ago.
