What happened in 2025: Big sales, many shoppers.
This isn’t the 1%
- Online spending on Black Friday hit ~$11.8 billion — a new record. Forbes+2Reuters+2
- Cyber Monday smashed prior marks too: U.S. online sales hit around $14.25 billion on that day. Adobe Newsroom+2Reuters+2
- Over the full Thanksgiving-to-Cyber-Monday stretch, consumers spent about $44.2 billion online — showing strong momentum for the broader holiday shopping period. Reuters+2Reuters+2
- Participation was huge: ~202.9 million people shopped during the five-day weekend (in-store + online), up from 197 million last year. Specialty Retailer+1
- For context: about 80.3 million shoppers visited stores and 85.7 million shopped online on Black Friday alone. PYMNTS.com
Because 64% of BFCM shoppers planned to use credit/financing — and online Black Friday sales alone are $11.8 billion — a rough ballpark suggests billions of dollars of that was charged to credit.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Americans in debt ontinue to live paycheck to paycheck, where every dollar is spoken for prior to receiving it.
Worse, a significant minority of Americans have access to something they call “Earned Wage Access” where, for a fee, they can be paid to date between pay periods.
The numbers you cite are higher, but the trends and behaviors remain the same.
Living in debt is reinforced by deficit spending from the beltway idiots – members of Congress and Presidents who have run $1+ Trillion a year in annual deficits for each of the past 16 years. Congress is great at telling people that they are entitled to more, and that someone else should pay.
You and I are both old enough to remember the Wimpy standard: “I will gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today.”
So, why would you expect everyday Americans to change long standing financial behaviors and to start living within their means?
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According to lendingtree.com, a Federal Reserve study indicated 46% of card holders carried a balance over at least one month during 2024. So it’s probably normal behavior this year.
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