invisible

Is there any articles out there showing how the pandemic affected credit card spending (on average) as well as types and categories?

While it is probably clear that in term of categories the airline tickets spent was probably the most affected, followed by the lodging/rental cars, what is more interesting is what are other, not so obvious or surprising categories in terms gains and cuts in spent.

Thanks

tmiw

There's this NYTimes article from April that has graphs showing which categories increased and decreased CC/debit card spending (unfortunately not specifically broken down by card type). As expected, travel and restaurants got hit pretty hard while grocery stores saw an increase (even after the panic buying ended).

Also, CC debt has gone down, but that might be more due to recessions causing people to save more in general rather than a wholesale shift to debit card spend.

rasheed

Related thread: Card spending metrics, post national emergency

It seems from time to time Chase researchers post what they have learned from their customer transactions.

sdsearch

I wonder how they measure debt. I notice that websites which know my credit info like Credit Karma say that my "debt" has done down in a particular month, but I never had any debt to begin with. They apparently just can't tell a monthly statement total that I'm going to pay off in full by the next due date from true "debt" by looking at my credit report data.

Years ago I heard that there was some consideration being given to noting whether a card had been "paid in full" that month on credit reports, but I haven't noticed it ever actually being added (unless perhaps it was added in some field that many websites don't show).

So are these people who are determining that CC debt has gone digging deeper, and looking only a true debt? Because if they're looking the same way, perhaps part of what they're seeing is people not charging as much monthly on cards as they used to, because they don't have certain things to spend on.

In my case, my hotel cards saw my "debt" go to $0 because I wasn't staying in hotels for work at all for several months (in the early "lockdown" days) like I usually do 3 nights a week.

invisible

Thanks for links, while interesting, it is already outdated after several months.
It will be interesting to know which shifts in spending were temporary and which is a now long term trend.

I think people would agree that spending on cruises is not coming back any time soon.

WineCountryUA

IME, based on numerous friends / neighbors, travel vacation spending is obvious down, but spending on home improvement is way up. Can not take that vacation; redo that deck, yard, paint the house, minor and major interior refreshing, .... that's what happening on my block

Home Depot, lowes, .... sales are up 15-25% YoY. Lots of that going on credit cards

Additionally, I would suspect sales are up or computers due to distance learning

FriscoHeavy

Computer sales are way up (just read an article yesterday).