Pedestrians sit outside a restaurant in the SoHo neighborhood of New York, USA on Wednesday, May 19, 2021. Photographer: Nina Westervelt / Bloomberg via Getty Images
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As the economy recovers and the market hits new highs, most people are ready to live them out.
Between eating and traveling, Americans now spend an average of $ 765 more per month than last year, when much of the country was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the MassMutual Consumer Spending & Saving Index.
Young adults in particular are determined to make up for lost time. Millennials and Gen Z, who reported feeling the financial impact of increasing reopenings and social gatherings, said they spend an average of $ 1,016 more per month than they did in the summer of 2020. July 1,000 U.S. adults Dec.
“Spending the extra cash is sometimes a short-term decision,” said Paul LaPiana, a certified financial planner and executive at MassMutual in Park City, Utah.
Younger generations “seem to be rushing to the door to get out and re-live their lives rather than making more disciplined decisions, including putting some away just because they’ve missed something in the past year and a half,” he observed.
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Many Americans plan to spend even more in the coming weeks when schools and offices reopen.
Due mainly to travel expenses and new clothes, around a third of office workers fear that a return to personal or hybrid work environments will affect them financially.
Almost half of parents of children in kindergarten through 12th grade also expect to spend more on this back-to-school season compared to 2020, and almost as many plan to spend more on materials than they did before the pandemic.
According to a forecast by Mastercard SpendingPulse, back-to-school sales in the US are expected to grow 6.7% from 2019 and 5.5% from last year’s Covid days.
However, the recent spike in Covid cases, fueled by the Delta variant, could thwart those predictions. In some schools, face-to-face learning is already at risk, while many offices have delayed their return to work plans.
When consumer spending picks up, savings go down.
Almost half, or 48%, of Americans said they saved less than $ 500 in the past three months, up from just 36% who said the same thing in April, MassMutual found.
The personal savings rate – how much people save as a percentage of their disposable income – hit a historic 33% last year but is now just over 9%, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
There is no doubt that concerns about the increase in the delta variant could cause consumers to change course again. Finally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently requested that vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors to prevent the spread of Covid.
The new guidelines have already made consumers rethink their choices about restaurants, travel and other shopping.
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