With the holiday season quickly approaching, many Americans will be forced to rethink their holiday spending, according to a new survey from Clever Real Estate, a St. Louis-based real estate company.

Clever polled 1,000 Americans and found that most Americans (61%) plan to adjust their holiday spending in 2022 because of inflation. Overall, 39% of Americans say they can't afford to do holiday shopping this year – yet, of those, 79% plan to anyway.

Nearly 1 in 10 Americans (9%) plan to skip holiday shopping this year, with the top reason being that they can't afford to shop (54%).

The survey found that 1 in 3 Americans (34%) plan to spend less on holiday shopping than they did last year. The average shopper plans to spend about $851 on gifts this holiday season, down from $893 in a typical year.

Of those planning to spend less, most, unsurprisingly, cite inflation as the primary reason for doing so (57%).

More than half (58%) of respondents say they are heading into the holiday season stressed about their finances – two-thirds (67%) admit they have overshopped during the holidays at some point, and 76% wish there was less pressure to spend a lot of money on holiday gifts.

With only 48% of Americans meeting their financial goals this year, the magic of the holiday season looks like it could be replaced with stress and anxiety. As a result, Americans find sales (93%), free shipping (91%), and coupons (89%) influential in choosing to make a purchase from a store.

With that, however, shoppers may be more impatient than ever this year – 16% of Americans expect gifts ordered online to arrive within two days, and 50% expect them to arrive within four days. Of Americans planning to shop this year, the vast majority (80%) are ready to get done early and plan to start before December.

Despite 34% of Americans worried they will go into debt due to holiday shopping, retailers likely do not need to panic: 91% of Americans still say they will be doing holiday shopping this year.

Read the full report at: https://listwithclever.com/research/holiday-shopping-survey-2022