Many Americans are capping off the holidays with new debt balances.

This season, 36% of American consumers took on holiday debt, according to a new survey from LendingTree.

Those who racked up balances this season took on an average of $1,181 in debt, up from $1,028 in 2023. However, that is still down from $1,549 in 2022, LendingTree found.

Less than half — 44% — of the people who took on debt expected to acquire those balances, a sign that this holiday season is still financially challenging for many people, according to Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree.

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Higher prices caused by inflation remain an issue for many individuals and families this holiday season, he said.

“Some of it is people just wanting to wrap up what’s been a difficult year by spreading a little joy, and maybe they ended up taking on a little bit of extra debt to do so,” Schulz said.

Those most likely to take on debt this season include parents of young children, with 48%; millennials ages 28 to 43, with 42%; and individuals who earn $30,000 to $49,999, with 39%, according to LendingTree.

Consumers who went into debt over the holidays run the risk of still carrying those balances when next year’s holiday season comes around. Almost half of Americans still have debt from last year’s holidays, WalletHub recently found.

Meanwhile, paying down debt is a top financial resolution for 2025, according to a recent Bankrate survey.

For those who want to get out of debt, it helps to get started as soon as possible, Schulz said.

Successfully knocking off those balances has its own reward in the way of freedom, said Laura Mattia, a certified financial planner and senior vice president at Wealth Enhancement Group in Sarasota, Florida, who works with clients at all levels of wealth.

“People love to be debt free,” Mattia said. “The idea of not owing anybody any money is extremely comforting.”

The classic Christmas movie “Home Alone” tells the improbable tale of a family who leaves their 8-year-old son home when they leave for vacation.

Yet in the years since the 1990 film was released, viewers have focused on another question — how wealthy was the fictitious McCallister family featured in the movie?

The family orders 10 pizzas on the eve of their trip, lives in a house that can sleep 15 people (including extended family) and all fly to Paris for the Christmas holiday.

“They’re well off and in a good place financially,” Cody Garrett, a certified financial planner, owner and financial planner at Measure Twice Financial in Houston, said of the first impression of the McCallisters’ circumstances.

But the family may not be quite as wealthy as they seem, Garrett said.

To better understand the details of the McCallister family’s financial circumstances, Garrett recently did a deep dive analysis of the family’s finances from “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” which debuted in late 1992, and hosted a webinar with around 25 financial planners to discuss financial planning opportunities that arise in the movies.

Both movies were shot long before social media made it popular to flaunt personal wealth online. Nevertheless, the lifestyle the McCallister family shows to the world may not necessarily be an indication of their wealth, Garrett said.

“There’s a lot of things that are showing that they spent a lot of money, or at least financed a lavish lifestyle to the public,” Garrett said. “But inside their own home, they’re actually maybe a little scared about money.”

The actual five-bedroom, six-bathroom Winnetka, Illinois, home where the movie was filmed was listed for $5.25 million in the spring. Today, it is still under contract, and a final sale price won’t be known until the deal is finalized, according to Zillow spokesperson Matt Kreamer.

To buy the house at $5.25 million today would cost approximately $34,000 per month, with principal, interest and property taxes, according to Kreamer. That’s with 20% down and a 7% mortgage rate.

To comfortably afford the home, you would need $100,000 per month in income, assuming you’re adhering to an affordability threshold of not spending more than one-third of your income on housing costs, Kreamer said.

“It’s a pretty spectacular house, and certainly one of the more famous movie homes that people can instantly recognize,” Kreamer said.

In 1990 when the first movie debuted, the home would have likely been worth a little less than $1 million, Kreamer estimates, which is still high for that time.

Yet the home may not necessarily point to a high net worth for the McCallister movie family.

“I would not be surprised if they don’t have much equity in their house,” Garrett said, given the couple’s stage of life and circumstances.

In the films, the McCallisters are also driving what at the time were relatively new cars — a 1986 Buick Electra Estate Wagon and a 1990 Buick LaSabre — each of which would be valued at $40,000 in today’s dollars, according to Garrett’s estimates.

While the family is eager to show their wealth — including mother Kate paying in cash for the $122.50 pizza bill while also offering a generous tip — they’re frugal when it comes to the things people don’t see, Garrett said.

How the family talks about money can sometimes point to a scarcity mindset, he said. For example, Kate mentions she doesn’t want to waste the family’s milk before they leave on vacation.

The family’s lifestyle isn’t paid for all on their own. Peter’s brother Rob actually foots the cost of the Paris trip for the family. That airfare would cost around $55,650 today, GoBankingRates recently estimated.

After a strong start to the holiday season, consumer spending is on track to reach record levels this year. But many of those purchases will soon be returned.

December’s peak shopping days are closely followed by the busiest month for sending items back, which experts dub “Returnuary.”

This year, returns are expected to amount to 17% of all merchandise sales, totaling $890 billion in returned goods, according to a recent report by the National Retail Federation — up from a return rate of about 15% of total U.S. retail sales, or $743 billion in returned goods, in 2023.

Even though returns happen throughout the year, they are much more prevalent during the holiday season, the NRF also found. As shopping reaches a peak, retailers expect their return rate for the holidays to be 17% higher, on average, than usual.

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“Ideally, I hope there is a world in which you can reduce the percent of returns,” said Amena Ali, CEO of returns solution company Optoro, but “the problem is not going to abate any time soon.”

With the explosion of online shopping during and since the pandemic, customers got increasingly comfortable with their buying and returning habits and more shoppers began ordering products they never intended to keep.

Nearly two-thirds of consumers now buy multiple sizes or colors, some of which they then send back, a practice known as “bracketing,” according to Happy Returns.

Even more — 69% — of shoppers admit to “wardrobing,” or buying an item for a specific event and returning it afterward, a separate report by Optoro found. That’s a 39% increase from 2023.

Largely because of these types of behaviors, 46% of consumers said they are returning goods multiple times a month — a 29% jump from last year, according to Optoro.

All of that back-and-forth comes at a hefty price.

“With behaviors like bracketing and rising return rates putting strain on traditional systems, retailers need to rethink reverse logistics,” David Sobie, Happy Returns’ co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.

Processing a return costs retailers an average of 30% of an item’s original price, Optoro found. But returns aren’t just a problem for retailers’ bottom line.

Often returns do not end up back on the shelf, and that also causes issues for retailers struggling to enhance sustainability, according to Spencer Kieboom, founder and CEO of Pollen Returns, a return management company. 

Sending products back to be repackaged, restocked and resold — sometimes overseas — generates even more carbon emissions, assuming they can be put back in circulation.

In some cases, returned goods are sent straight to landfills, and only 54% of all packaging was recycled in 2018, the most recent data available, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Returns in 2023 created 8.4 billion pounds of landfill waste, according to Optoro.

That presents a major challenge for retailers, not only in terms of the lost revenue, but also in terms of the environmental impact of managing those returns, said Rachel Delacour, co-founder and CEO of Sweep, a sustainability data management firm. “At the end of the day, being sustainable is a business strategy.”

To that end, companies are doing what they can to keep returns in check.

In 2023, 81% of U.S. retailers rolled out stricter return policies, including shortening the return window and charging a return or restocking fee, according to another report from Happy Returns.

While restocking fees and shipping charges may help curb the amount of inventory that is sent back, retailers also said that improving the returns experience was a key goal for 2025.

Now 33% of retailers, including Amazon and Target, are allowing their customers to simply “keep it,” offering a refund without taking the product back.

Increasingly, return policies and expectations are an important predictor of consumer behavior, according to Happy Returns’ Sobie, particularly for Generation Z and millennials.

“Return policies are no longer just a post-purchase consideration — they’re shaping how younger generations shop from the start,” Sobie said.

Three-quarters, or 76%, of shoppers consider free returns a key factor in deciding where to spend their money, and 67% say a negative return experience would discourage them from shopping with a retailer again, the NRF found.

A survey of 1,500 adults by GoDaddy found that 77% of shoppers check the return policy before making a purchase.

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