Of The 214 Million Holiday Shoppers, 1 In 3 Still Carry Last Year's Debt

Surveys and analysis from a recent holiday shopping report by NerdWallet found that many American consumers planning to shop in the coming weeks still carry the debt from last year’s season.

More than 2,000 adults were surveyed with 1,706 of those who responded being shoppers and 29% of those shoppers who shopped with credit had not paid off balances on their credit cards from last season’s shopping.

This includes 34% of millennials who still have debt.

Last year, 214 million people spent $163 billion, $725 per shopper on average. This year, shoppers will spend $620 on average, 75% of whom will pay with credit cards. One in five will also choose buy now and pay later options.

Kimberly Palmer, a NerdWallet personal finance expert, says to those going into this holiday shopping season still in debt, “if you’re heading into this holiday season while still paying off debt accumulated from last year, first make a plan to pay it off.”

Amid an inflation crisis, supply chain delays and product shortages, prices this year are also rising across the board.

“When consumers get in over their heads, there are some obvious implications,” a senior vice president of public policy and legal affairs for the Consumer Data Industry Association, Eric Ellman, told CNBC. “Their credit scores could go down and that could increase the cost of future borrowing.”