Shoppers may spend $1,000 during holidays

Before you polish off that gift list for Black Friday and beyond, you might want to think about a budget to avoid starting the new year in the red.

That’s the advice of the personal finance information site WalletHub. The site has figured what the average holiday budget should be based on some key metrics of the city where people live. According to WalletHub’s report, the average per-person budget in Denver and Boulder should be $615 this holiday season.

The report is aimed at helping shoppers avoid buyer’s remorse by providing guidelines based on a city’s average income; age; debt-to-income ratio; monthly-income to monthly-expenses ratio; and savings to monthly-expenses ratio. On average, shoppers are expected to spend $1,007 this holiday season, up 4.1 percent from 2017, WalletHub said.

“Although a few extra bucks might seem negligible, it’s important to put it in the context of American spending, and credit card debt, as a whole,” WalletHub said. In 2018, the average household credit card debt is $8,332.

Here are the average suggested spending levels for other Colorado cities:

Aurora, $605; Colorado Springs, $569; Fort Collins, $581; Greeley, $514; Highlands Ranch, $1,521; Longmont, $732; Loveland, $572; Pueblo, $320; Thornton, $769; and Westminster, $616

To help stick to a budget, WalletHub offers the following advice/ warnings:

• Jewelry will offer the most value on

Black Friday 2018 relative to their current prices, while computers and phones are expected to be the least rewarding deals.

• Disney, iTunes and Visa top the list of 2018’s best gift cards.

• All store credit cards do not charge an annual fee, and the average card offering rewards in the form of discounts gives you more than 29 percent off your first purchase, according to WalletHub’s 2018 Store Card Landscape Report.

• Most of the major retailers offering 0 percent financing use a feature called deferred interest, which has the poten-

tial to make holiday purchases up to 27.5 times more expensive than expected.

• Give cash. It might seem impersonal, but cash is also much simpler and more versatile than any other present. Gift cards are another good option, especially since the most popular offers have decent resale value. You can also give gift cards for shares of companies’ stock.

• Hunt for deals. The best retailers for Black Friday usually give up to 70 percent off and the best cyberweek deals offer as much as 60 percent off. Retailers also hold more impromptu sales this time of year, and you can often find big-time savings online from sites such as eBay.

• Give back. Roughly 16 percent of charities receive more than half their annual donations during the holiday season, according to the Nonprofit Research Collective. There are plenty of charities to choose from.