Pedestrians view the holiday windows at a store in New York on Dec. 2, 2021.
Christopher Occhicone | Bloomberg | Getty Images
High inflation and rising interest rates mean holiday shoppers who turned to credit cards and other methods of borrowing are left with bigger balances this year.
Slightly more than a third, or 35%, of shoppers took on debt this holiday season, down from 36% last year, according to a new survey from LendingTree. But the average debt borrowers took on climbed to $1,549 in 2022, a 24% increase from last year’s average of $1,249.
Most people 63% who took on debt were not planning to do so, up from 54% last year.
More than a third of shoppers 37% will take five months or longer to pay those balances off, …
Read the full article at: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/28/why-carrying-holiday-debt-can-be-especially-troubling-this-year.html