Holiday Spending Budgets: The Most Generous, Cheapest NC Cities

CHARLOTTE, NC — With the holidays right around the corner, many are thinking about spending budgets, which in North Carolina, can amount to hundreds of dollars. Personal finance website WalletHub took a look at the recommended holiday spending amounts for 570 cities in the U.S. and found Charlotte was in the top half of its list, coming in 243rd with a budget of $703.

"To help consumers avoid post-holiday regret, WalletHub used several key metrics, such as income, age and savings-to-monthly expenses ratio, to estimate the maximum spending amounts for consumers in each of 570 U.S. cities," officials said in releasing the findings on Tuesday.

According to the National Retail Federation, however, budgets are often blown. The average per-person amount spent expected this year is about $1,007, the organization said.

Who are the folks with the cheapest holiday budget? That would be those living in Cleveland, who should spend a paltry $64.

"We calculated the maximum holiday budget for each city using the population's income, age, debt to income ratio, monthly income to monthly expenses ratio and savings to monthly expenses ratio," said WalletHub's Diana Polk.

"The total amount represents the average maximum holiday budget," she told Patch. "Seeing as we considered people's income as well as all types of expenses, the actual budgets should be close to our numbers, but we cannot estimate how much people will actually spend."

Here’s how North Carolina cities ranked for holiday budgets, according to WalletHub:

• No. 12 — Cary, $2,010
• No. 156 — Asheville, $870
• No. 202 — Concord, $768
• No. 221 — Raleigh, $739
• No. 243 — Charlotte, $703
• No. 283 — Durham, $650
• No. 360 — High Point, $579
• No. 397 — Greensboro, $550
• N0. 409 — Gastonia, $544
• No. 428 — Winston-Salem, $520
• No. 441 — Wilmington, $510
• No. 451 — Jacksonville, $498
• No. 465 — Fayetteville, $484
• No. 521 — Greenville, $418

In Flower Mound, Texas, the average holiday gift budget is $2,761,which is more than any other city in the nation. Flower Mound was followed by Sunnyvale, California which had a budget of $2,575 and San Ramon, California with a budget of $2,036.

See where other cities rank here.

How does this compare to your anticipated holiday budget? Tell us in the comment section!

Patch Editor Paul Scicchitano contributed.

Photo via Shutterstock