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Bucks Blog: Many Consumers Plan to Spend Less This Holiday Season

December 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Holiday shoppers in Miami.Associated PressHoliday shoppers in Miami.

With economic concerns weighing heavily, 42 percent of Americans –and 49 percent of parents — say they plan to spend less this holiday season than last year, a recent survey found.

Bankrate.com’s November Financial Security Index poll, released early this week, found that just 10 percent of Americans plan to spend more this year than they did in 2010.

But it remains to be seen if consumers can stick to their budgets. Retailers, for instance, reported strong sales over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

“While consumers indicate a reluctance to spend more this holiday season, there is a notorious disconnect between how consumers feel and how consumers act, particularly regarding spending,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com, in a statement.

Princeton Survey Research Associates conducted the telephone survey of 1,005 adults in early November. The margin of sampling error is four percentage points.

The index fell to its second-lowest level of the year, as feelings of job security hit a new low. Just 13 percent of Americans feel more secure in their jobs now than they did one year ago, which helped drag down the overall index to 92.5 points, just above the 2011 low of 92.3 recorded in August. (A reading below 100 indicates decreasing levels of financial security compared with 12 months earlier.)

The percentage of Americans reporting higher net worth than one year ago rebounded slightly in November, thanks to the October stock market rally. Feelings on both savings and debt were largely unchanged from October, with only 11 percent of Americans more comfortable with their savings and 20 percent more comfortable with their debt relative to one year ago.

Are you planning to spend less over the holidays this year? How will you make sure you stay within your budget?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=ec2e3fa79689fb3ad970bfeabe6a3c4a

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Bucks Blog: More Americans Planning Holiday Travel This Year

November 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Holiday traffic near Washington, D.C.Getty ImagesHoliday traffic near Washington, D.C.

It’s that time of year again, and more Americans are saying they will take a trip of at least one night during this holiday season, a recent survey found.

Nearly 60 percent of adults were confident they would take a holiday trip this season. That’s up from 50 percent last year and more comparable with 2009 levels (61 percent), according to a poll conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs on behalf of Mondial Assistance USA, which sells travel insurance and assistance services.

But while more people said they planned to travel, they expected to spend less on their trips — $980 on average, down from $1,040 last year, the survey found. Whether they’ll stick to their budgets, however, remains to be seen. Last year, adults who took a holiday trip reported spending $1,530 on average, well above their initial expectations.

The poll, conducted by telephone in early November, was of a nationally representative sample of 1,000 randomly selected adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

More than half of adults (54 percent) said that an annual holiday trip was important. Those most likely to find it important included parents of children under 18; those with a household income of $75,000 or more; and adults under 35.

Still, about two in 10 of those who said it was important to take an annual holiday trip were not confident that they would take one this year. Still, that was an improvement over the 32 percent who were not sure they would take a holiday trip in 2010, which means the “vacation deficit” has decreased.

Car travel is still the top mode of holiday transportation, cited by 56 percent of those surveyed. A third of travelers plan to travel by plane this year, compared with about a quarter last year. Just 1 percent said they’d take a train.

Of those people who did not take a vacation last year, but feel confident they will take a holiday trip this year, 11 percent say that they are alternating travel year by year to save money.

Will you travel for the holidays this year? If not, is it primarily due to economic reasons?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=f8061f75f72a8e9050d0d9e87b62d27e

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Bucks Blog: A Fair A.T.M. Fee? Many Consumers Say ‘Zero’

November 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

As the events of the last couple of months have shown, Americans do not like to pay bank fees. Indeed, a new survey shows, a majority think the only acceptable A.T.M. fee is no fee at all.

More than half of those surveyed for Ally Bank (an online bank that, surprise, promotes its lack of fees, and reimburses the fees its customers are charged for using other banks’ A.T.M.’s) said they thought the only fair A.T.M. fee was zero.

The survey also found that about half of those polled (53 percent) said they would rather take time to search for a free A.T.M. than pay a fee for the closest, most convenient option.

The telephone survey for Ally Bank was conducted in October by the Opinion Research Corporation among 1,016 adults (510 men and 506 women). The margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points.

Here are some other findings in the survey:
• 84 percent of respondents said they didn’t believe it was acceptable to charge a fee for checking.
• 79 percent said they didn’t believe it was all right to charge a monthly maintenance fee.
• 77 percent said they didn’t think it was right to charge an A.T.M. fee.

The findings suggest that many bank customers will be disgruntled, as banks continue to impose a variety of fees on their customers to make up revenue they have lost because of new limits on fees they can charge merchants for processing debit card transactions.

What sort of bank account fees, if any, do you think are acceptable?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=42402b9596a4b3351b4b4ea68d59b6ed

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Bucks Blog: Fewer Americans Confident About Retirement Savings, Survey Finds

November 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The sluggish economy is taking a toll on Americans’ confidence in their retirement savings, a new survey found.

Only a quarter of working Americans are “very confident” that they will have enough money for basic living expenses in retirement, down from 42 percent last year. And two-thirds say they believe they will need to work at least three years longer than they had planned, because of the economic environment.

The findings come from the Sun Life Financial “Unretirement Index” Survey. The survey was conducted by Knowledge Networks in September, using a probability-based sample of roughly 1,500 working adults. The margin of sampling error is 3 percent.

The Unretirement Index is scored on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 reflecting highest confidence about retirement. The Index score dropped from near the middle of the range (44) in September 2010, toward the bottom third of the scale (36) in September 2011, down 18.2 percent. The survey is the fifth in a series that began in 2008,

The survey also found less faith in the durability of government benefits. Confidence in the future of Social Security benefits plunged to 9 percent today, from 22 percent in 2008. And confidence about Medicare benefits has also plummeted, to 8 percent today from from 20 percent in 2008.

How confident are you about your plans for retirement?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=227a00c8b08f528e8c81dafb75e3d8d0

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