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Consumer Reports: One-In-Five Gift Buyers Spent $1,000 Or More This Past Holiday Season
January 26, 2010Nearly a month into the post-holiday hangover, Consumer Reports' latest Holiday Shopping Poll, found that Americans came prepared to shop this past season spending an average of $811 on gifts and one-fifth (22%) cashing out $1,000 or more. Shoppers shattered their spending expectations from early December with a spending frenzy leading up to December 25. Originally, shoppers anticipated spending $699 on gifts, yet the final tally in January was $811, a difference of $112. These results wrap-up Consumer Reports series of holiday polls that tracked consumer purchasing since October 2009. The full poll results are available on www.ConsumerReports.org. This past holiday season showed that some Americans were happy gift givers, while others "scrooges." Eight-in-ten (81%) consumers purchased gifts with the most likely being households earning $100,000 or more (94%). Shoppers with the tightest wallets were households earning less than $50,000, more than a quarter (26%) did not purchase holiday gifts. The biggest scrooges of them all were Americans 65+ (35%) – purchasing no holiday gifts at all. Full release.