How Evanston's Holiday Spending Ranks

EVANSTON, IL — The holiday season is a time for celebration, but between the presents, decorations and festive meals, it can become an expensive time of year.

Evanston residents have the fourth-largest potential holiday budgets in the state, according to a new ranking by WalletHub.

The personal finance website ranked the maximum holiday budget for residents in hundreds of medium to large cities across the country, with Evanston finishing 57th, with residents able to spend an average of $1,432.

“To avoid overspending during the holidays, have a realistic budget and plan with a maximum cap that you share with a spending partner, do not be guilted by yourself or others into overspending, and shop year-round early to get both the best prices and the greatest number of options,” Scott Swan, a professor of innovation and marketing at William & Mary, said in comments accompanying the study.

Americans are projected to spend between $727 and $730 billion during the 2019 holiday shopping season, which runs from Nov. 13 to Dec. 25.

Shoppers in Palo Alto, California, plan to spend the most per capita during the holiday buying season, according to the analysis. Sunnyvale, California, and Flower Mound, Texas, ranked second and third.

Residents in Providence, Rhode Island, have the lowest holiday budget in the country at just $111.

To determine the ranking, WalletHub compared 570 of the largest cities in the United States across five key characteristics of holiday spending, including income, age, debt-to-income ratio, monthly income-to-monthly expense ratio, and savings-to-monthly spending ratio.

Here are the 10 cities with the highest holiday budgets:

1. Palo Alto, California: $3,160
2. Sunnyvale, California: $2,971
3. Flower Mound, Texas: $2,937
4. Newton, Massachusetts: $2,888
5. Mountain View, California: $2,877
6. Frisco, Texas: $2,836
7. The Woodlands, Texas: $2,833
8. Carmel, Indiana: $2,632
9. Naperville, Illinois: $2,566
10. Milpitas, California: $2,549

Full rankings available via WalletHub