As in each year, around this date, Christmas, with our desire to have perfect holidays, expenses are waiting for us.
We see again our loved ones and give them presents, following an old tradition shared by many countries.
But if we think about it, how much money we spent at Christmas?
Several sources such as ING basis from theguardiang.com, Deloitte, NRF and Nielsen help us to compare Christmas spending, and now we presenting this infographic about the spend at Christmas.
On this visual story the most austere country is found at South America, Chilean people don’t spend as much as others, spending 101$ per person, followed by Argentina with 115$ and Colombia with 124$.
Crossing the pond, we have to go as far as Eastern Europe to find similar numbers, specifically to Romania with an average expenditure of 125$ per person, but if we take into account the average wage, this country spends the 59% of their salary only on presents.
Continuing in the old continent, France and Spain, apart from sharing border, they share the same amount of Christmas spending, a total of 374$ per person at both countries.
Silver and gold, on purchases, go for English speakers, England spending 548$ and only American people, largely exceed, using 704$ per person.
And actually, the amount of money spent is not directly related to the number of presents that they give, just England is the country that spends the most and also gives more presents per person, 15 is its average.
Followed closely by Australia with 13, Italy with 11 and Argentina with 10 gifts per person.
And how US uses all the money that they spend?
If we distinguish their expenses by bond, we might understand that American people are homey by spending 480$ on their families, compared to 80$ on friends and 26$ on workmates.
However, by categories, they love giving food and use 105$ on it, pretty above 54$ for decoration or 29$ for Christmas cards.
In general, all this data visualization is well worth knowing to have an idea about how expenses are going to change these next years.
A Christmas card is the perfect present, is what the people spent more money in, followed by technological devices, toys, clothes, and videogames. At the end of the raking we find books and jewelry that have the less interested buyers.
If we compare these expenses to other years, all items follow the same pattern, in 2012 and 2013, the budget was lower on all categories until 2014 when we can see a moderate increase of 1 and 2%. The only two exceptions are technological devices and videogames where the spending decreases and jewelry keeps the same investment during these three years.
These data visualization gives us a perspective of Christmas expenses in the Western world. Presents are just another way to show our love, without obsessing about quantity, quality and misleading of price and value.
