The stress of holiday spending runs deep

So much for happy holidays.

Most of us, according to a new survey from Union Bank, are worried about overspending for Christmas gifts. Three out of four people surveyed are stressed out about overeating, even before the overeating has begun. Nearly 40 percent of us fret about drinking too much over the holidays, while a third of those polled said they’re prepared to go into debt in order to buy something nice for their significant other.

Good luck with that. Nearly every year for the past decade, according to an Investopia report, the amount of money that American consumers spend on holiday gifts has been increasing over the previous year. For 2019, industry experts say they expect the average American to spend $920 on holiday gifts. That’s a jump from the $885 they spent in 2018 and it all adds up to more than $1 trillion in holiday spending.

The Union Bank survey, which was conducted by global market research firm Edelman Intelligence, did a deep dive into the financial psyche of a nationally representative sample of 1,000 American adults ages 18 and older. The goal, said the authors, was “to understand how people are spending their hardearned cash this holiday season.”

The results were quite revealing. For example, the so-called Holiday Money Confessions Survey found that it takes a third of

Americans six months to pay off their holiday purchases. That means all that good-cheer translates into a debt load that lasts until summer. Another curious and even troubling confession was that 27 percent of those polled said they would go into debt to buy their significant other “the perfect gift,” whatever that means.

Still, one survey does not a national snapshot make: Bankrate’s annual Holiday Spending Survey last month suggested that a slight majority of people actually planned to avoid falling into debt from irrational exuberant gift-buying. That poll showed that 56 percent of consumers were going to do their holiday spending with money they already have rather than borrowing.

“Too many people fall into a negative cycle of overspending ahead of the holidays, which at best, sets the stage for a New Year’s resolution to hold the line in the future,” says Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate. “That will only work if a concerted effort is made to truly save for both short- and long-term needs.”

Nevertheless, the Union Bank poll came up with some compelling and even intimate glimpses into how we really feel about money during the now thoroughly commercialized holiday shopping season.

• 44 percent of Millennials admit to using money as an excuse not to travel home for the holidays

• Gen Z ( born between 1996 and 2010) plans to spend just as much on themselves as others

• 20 percent of those folks say they plan to drop more than $250

• 27 percent would go into debt to buy their significant other “the perfect gift”

• 81 percent plan to buy a gift for their pet

• 20 percent of those people said they’d spend more than $50 on that animal

• Americans plan to spend most on Mom, especially Gen Z, whose members favor mom by 57 percent, compared to Millennials at 33 percent and Gen X at 21 percent

The poll also made it clear that our emotional temperature rises as we approach Christmas and those seasonal worries set in:

• 77 percent are concerned about overspending

• 75 percent are concerned about overeating

• 58 percent are concerned about overcommitting to holiday engagements

• 39 percent are concerned about overdrinking

And according to the survey, spending debt is clearly on people’s minds this time of year:

• More than half of Americans would rather have their credit cards paid off than receive an extravagant gift like a car

• 33 percent of Americans report taking six months to pay off holiday purchases

• About that same amount say they’ll spend money they don’t have to impress friends and family

• 4 in 10 respondents admit they feel pressure to spend on people they don’t want to, even more so for Millennials (56 percent)

• Despite most U.S. consumers planning to give openable presents to those on their list (66 percent), more Americans would prefer gift cards (51 percent) or cash (45 percent) than a present they can open (41 percent).

Here are a few California-specific stats culled from the survey:

• Californians are more concerned about over-eating than they are overspending for the holidays, as opposed to the national trend of being most concerned with over-spending

• Most Californians plan to give gift cards, versus most Americans plan to gift presents that you can open

• Californians most want cash (53%) and gift cards (55%) under their tree

• Californians are more likely to give themselves a budget for holiday spending vs the national average (76% vs 65%)

• More than half (52%) of Californians admit to feeling pressured to spend money on people they don’t want to this holiday season

• The survey also revealed that many relationships are handicapped by a holiday-time lack of communication with half of those in relationships telling pollsters that they don’t agree with their significant other about how much to spend on each other.

The survey’s authors included some advice for shoppers to get their arms around their gift buying.

“Having a realistic budget and planning ahead are the best ways to control holiday spending,” said Tonya Rapley, a millennial money expert who partnered with Union Bank on the study.