Austin Consumers' Average Holiday Budget Is $1,259: Report

AUSTIN, TX — More than half of the nation's merchants are expecting bolstered holiday consumer spending this year despite the coronavirus pandemic, according to reports. Local business owners may consequently wonder what size budget Austin residents will have as they embark on their shopping.

Wonder no more, merchants. The personal finance website WalletHub has released its 2020 Holiday Budgets by City report suggesting maximum spending amounts for consumers across the country, including in Austin, based on key metrics.

The report comes as 54 percent of merchants expect increased holiday spending in 2020 despite the pandemic. WalletHub analysts set out to avert consumers' post-holiday regret by outlining maximum spending based on several metrics — income, age, savings-to-monthly expense ratios and the like — as a financial shopping guide for consumers in 570 cities.

The upshot: the average holiday budget for 2020 among Austin consumers should be $1,259 based on key economic metrics, WalletHub researchers found. To achieve that budget — the 99th-biggest among the studied cities — researchers arrived at a profile for the average consumer in Austin:

• Monthly Income: $6,284.
• Monthly Expenses: $4,753.
• Savings: $6,340.
• Age: 33.9.
• Debt-to-Income: 32.8 percent.
• Monthly Income-to-Monthly Expenses Ratio: 1.32.
• Savings-to-Monthly Expenses Ratio: 1.33.

Holiday budgets for consumers in others Texas cities also were estimated. The biggest holiday budget in the Lone Star State is in the Dallas suburb of Flower Mount, Texas, where average expenditures total $2,973 based on consumer profiles — the second-biggest among the studied cities — according to the report. Ranked sixth and seventh in Texas, respectively, are The Woodlands and Sugar Land, where the average consumer's budget is estimated at $2,729 and $2,728.

The only other Texas city among the top 20 is 15th-ranked League City, where the average holiday budget totals $2,501. Pearland clinched the 23rd spot, with the average holiday budget estimated to be $2,319.

For more information, see the full 2020 Holiday Budgets By City report.