MOUNT VERNON — Between holiday purchases and inflation, this time of the year can be tough financially on consumers.
A report by personal finance company NerdWallet shows that about 28 percent of Americans still carry credit card balances from purchasing holiday gifts in 2023.
Whatcom Educational Credit Union Consumer Loan Manager Irene Boyer said this is a trend she is seeing locally.
“It just continues to rise,” she said. “People are continuing to carry balances over.”
Boyer said she sees a spike in credit card debt in November and December, then tends to see it decrease at the start of the year after some get holiday bonuses or in April when people get money back after filing tax returns.
Boyer said besides purchases credit card debt is affected by inflation, rising interest rates, incomes not keeping up and other factors.
Between the food costs at Thanksgiving and the costs of holiday gifts, this can put pressure on families already struggling with financial stability.
WECU Director of Community Impact Reid Frederick said it is important to save money for gifts throughout the year when possible, and when agreeing to payment plans to remember that regular expenses do not stop coming.
“Be honest with yourself,” he said of deciding if an item can be afforded.
Another tip from Frederick is finding ways to spend less.
For Thanksgiving, he said this could look like buying store brand items or looking for sales.
According to the American Farm Bureau’s annual Thanksgiving Dinner survey, a classic Thanksgiving meal for 10 will cost about $58.08 this year.
While that is down from the $61.17 in 2023 and the record high of $64.05 in 2022, it is still much higher than pre-COVID-19 pandemic prices.
“Despite the encouraging momentum, a Thanksgiving meal is still 19 percent higher than it was in 2019, which highlights the impact inflation has had on food prices — and farmers’ costs — since the pandemic,” an American Farm Bureau news release states.
According to the release, a reason for the decrease in cost is the price of turkeys, which is an average of about $1.60 per pound nationally.
The Skagit Valley Herald went to several local grocery stores and found the average price to be about $1.69, however, this is likely to change with sales.
“The American turkey flock is the smallest it’s been since 1985 because of avian influenza, but overall demand has also fallen, resulting in lower prices at the grocery store for families planning a holiday meal,” Farm Bureau Economist Bernt Nelson said in the release.
Other items found in local stores, such as cranberries, sweet potatoes and carrots, were within 30 cents a pound of the national average shown in the survey, coming in about $2.60 a pound for cranberries, $3.19 for sweet potatoes and 92 cents for carrots.
A 30-ounce can of pumpkin pie filling was shown as $4.15 in the survey, but locally would run about $5.99. A gallon of whole milk was another item more expensive locally than in the survey, coming in at an average of $4.30 locally compared to $3.21 in the survey.
For holiday gifts, Frederick said money could be saved by shopping at secondhand stores, giving handmade gifts or setting a price limit.
“There’s a lot of meaning behind gift giving,” he said. “It’s deeply tied to emotion, relationships.”
Due to this, he said it is important to communicate with friends and family about the expectations for gifts and other holiday items.
“That’s the best any of us can do in that type of situation,” Frederick said. “They might be equally relieved.”
