Arlington Heights Makes Highest Holiday Spending List

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL — Apparently, Arlington Heights residents can afford to be pretty big spenders this holiday season, according to the personal finance site Wallethub. The village ranked 51st on the website's 2017 estimated holiday spending list with a maximum per-person budget of $1,315. Schaumburg was No. 52 on the list with a maximum per-person spending budget of $1,306.

Arlington Heights' ranking is actually a significant drop from its 2016 listing. In that year, the village was No. 28 when it came to estimated holiday budgets with a maximum per-person spending of $1,459. That listing made it the top-ranked Illinois city for 2016, too. This year, Naperville holds that distinction, as well as being the top-ranked city among the 570 U.S. cities that make up the list.

To come up with the list, WalletHub’s analysts used five key characteristics of a community's population — such as income, age and savings-to-monthly expenses ratio — to calculate the maximum holiday budget for cities. The data used to create the rankings came from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Student Aid, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve and TransUnion.

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"At a high level, our algorithm considers a consumer to be in a comfortable financial position to engage in holiday spending if they have: 1) enough emergency savings to cover at least six months of expenses and 2) a debt-to-income ratio smaller than 22 percent for a renter or 43 percent for a homeowner," WalletHub stated in the listing. "Depending on a city’s specific characteristics, the algorithm adjusts upward or downward to create a custom estimate."

Overall, holiday spending is expected to be up this year, according to the National Retail Federation. The organization projects that the average per-person spending for 2017 will be $967.13, a 3.4 percent from last year's $935.58 average.

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Other Illinois towns that made the top 100 of WalletHub's holiday budget list included:

• Palatine (No. 40; $1,383)
• Skokie (No. 69; $1,177)
• Joliet (No. 80; $1,116)

And here's how the list's top 10 turned out:

1. Naperville ($2,381)
2. Sugar Land, Texas ($2,368)
3. Bellevue, Washington ($2,367)
4. Sunnyvale, California ($2,360)
5. Carmel, Indiana ($2,330)
6. Milpitas, California ($2,262)
7. League City, Texas ($2,225)
8. Maple Grove, Minnesota ($2,221)
9. Allen, Texas ($2,163)
10. Columbia, Maryland ($2,032)

Go to WalletHub for the personal finance website's complete list of estimated holiday spending among U.S. cities.

Image via Pixabay