Americans spend more on holiday shopping

Americans, on average, now owe in excess of 12-hundred dollars more after this holiday season.  Fears of the Omicron variant and higher prices didn’t stop holiday shoppers from going big this season.  LendingTree says more than a third of consumers reported they spent more than they could afford.  While most put the debt on their credit cards, nearly 40-percent used ‘buy now, pay later financing’ to help spread out expenses.  This type of payment method grew in popularity during the increase of online shopping during the pandemic.  However, it’s been found that installment buying encourages people to spend more than they can afford.