Bank of America: What Will You Spend Thanksgiving Weekend?
With Thanksgiving rapidly approaching, and hearts and minds throughout the country turning to the thought of home, family, and one great monster feast, a point less often considered is what we’ll be spending in the process. Where is clear, and how often just as much so, but what…that’s less thought of. Bank of America recently took a look at credit card spending from the past few Thanksgiving weekends and summed up what we’ll be spending Thanksgiving weekend.
Perhaps not surprisingly, there’s a lot that goes into those memory-making Thanksgivings. Spending on gas, for example, is highest the Friday before Thanksgiving, up 19 percent on average for November. Grocery store spending, meanwhile, spikes to 62 percent of normal average the day before Thanksgiving.
Those familiar with “Blackout Wednesday,” one of the heaviest bar traffic days of the year, will be interested to note that Bank of America found the heaviest bar and nightclub spending to take place the Saturday after Thanksgiving instead, with spending up 74 percent of the normal daily average.
Shopping, of course, is huge: millennials—known for online and mobile shopping—actually hit stores on Black Friday, with in-person transactions more than double at 112 percent. Cyber Monday, meanwhile, saw online retail spending only slightly more than double at 107 percent of normal. Essentially, Black Friday is brick-and-mortar—likely as shoppers chase doorbusters—and Cyber Monday is more for website traffic. Meanwhile, Giving Tuesday, which follows Cyber Monday, sees 71 percent greater donations than average that day.
It’s actually kind of odd; we’d known for some time that Blackout Wednesday was a thing, but for Bank of America customers, they hold their liquor for Saturday rather than Wednesday. That could be a variety of factors at work, including age and demographics—plus the fact that these are credit card holders, which assumes a certain amount of creditworthiness that could imply in turn greater responsibility—but there’s a clear delineation between what’s expected and what is.
Still, we have to remember the sandbox we’re playing in here. That does make a difference, and shows us that Bank of America customers are something of a different breed.