Big spenders
This Dallas suburb tops the list of biggest holiday spenders in U.S.
Santa Claus is coming to one North Texas town in a big way. A new study by personal finance website WalletHub estimates the typical holiday shopping budget in Flower Mound will be $2,937 this year — the third highest sum among U.S. cities.
To come up with its ranking for holiday spending per person, WalletHub compared 570 U.S. cities across five metrics: income, age, debt-to-income ratio, monthly income-to-expense ratio, and monthly savings-to-expense ratio.
In terms of income, Flower Mound far exceeds the median amount per household in Texas, meaning there’s presumably more money in the bank to buy holiday gifts. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income for Flower Mound stood at $128,426 in 2017. By comparison, the median household income in Texas was $57,051.
Flower Mound ranked first in WalletHub’s 2018 study on holiday spending. This year, the two cities ahead of Flower Mound are in Northern California: Palo Alto ($3,160) and Sunnyvale ($2,971).
Flower Mound isn’t the only Texas city in this year’s top 30 for holiday spending. The five others are:
- No. 6 — Frisco ($2,836)
- No. 7 — The Woodlands ($2,833)
- No. 13 — Sugar Land ($2,386)
- No. 14 — Cedar Park ($2,263)
- No. 17 — Allen ($2,212)
Not surprisingly, a couple of those cities bear some of the state’s highest per-household burdens for credit card debt. According to personal finance website ValuePenguin, the average credit card debt in Flower Mound was $11,715 in 2017, compared with $6,948 statewide, while Allen was at $12,101.