With 2016 holiday spending expected to increase 3.6 percent to nearly $656 billion and more than a third of consumers exceeding their holiday budgets in 2015, the personal-finance website WalletHub released its 2016 Holiday Budgets by City report.
To help consumers with their holiday-budget planning, WalletHub’s analysts used several key metrics — ranging from “age” to “debt-to-income ratio” — to estimate and compare the maximum spending amounts for consumers in each of 570 U.S. cities.
| Cities with the Highest Holiday Budgets | |||||
| 1 | Palo Alto, CA ($2,821) | 11 | Midland, TX ($1,752) | ||
| 2 | League City, TX ($2,362) | 12 | Santa Clara, CA ($1,748) | ||
| 3 | Sugar Land, TX ($2,334) | 13 | Arlington, VA ($1,741) | ||
| 4 | Sunnyvale, CA ($2,203) | 14 | Pleasanton, CA ($1,726) | ||
| 5 | Pearland, TX ($2,080) | 15 | Frisco, TX ($1,719) | ||
| 6 | Missouri City, TX ($1,985) | 16 | Newton, MA ($1,675) | ||
| 7 | Cary, NC ($1,948) | 17 | Flower Mound, TX ($1,675) | ||
| 8 | Mountain View, CA ($1,914) | 18 | Fishers, IN ($1,601) | ||
| 9 | Shawnee, KS ($1,843) | 19 | Columbia, MD ($1,591) | ||
| 10 | Troy, MI ($1,809) | 20 | The Woodlands, TX ($1,564) | ||
Key Stats
- Cambridge, Mass., has the lowest debt-to-income ratio, 19.41 percent, which is four times lower than in Menifee, Calif., the city with the highest at 78.38 percent.
- Fishers, Ind., has the lowest expenses-to-income ratio, 59.18 percent, which is 1.7 times lower than in Brockton, Mass., the city with the highest at 99.64 percent.
- Jackson, Miss., has the highest savings-to-income ratio, 165 percent, which is 1.8 times higher than in Anchorage, Alaska, the city with the lowest at 91 percent.
- Fishers, Ind., has the highest savings-to-monthly expenses ratio, 227 percent, which is 2.1 times higher than in Baltimore, the city with the lowest at 108 percent.
