Kalamazoo, Detroit Among Lowest 2023 Holiday Budgets Nationwide

The holidays are supposed to be some of the best times of the year. More time with family, showering your loved ones with gifts and eating huge family meals.

Of course, that's more of the commercialized success of Thanksgiving and Christmas. For many, the holidays are just a further reminder of how difficult life is day in and day out. Once the holidays come around, it's only made worse because there isn't any extra money or time to give to friends and family for gifts and joy.

Consider this, a WalletHub study considered a holiday consumer to be in a financial situation comfortable to spend on holidays if they have enough emergency savings to cover at least six months of expenses, a debt-to-income ratio smaller than 22% for renters or 43% for homeowners. I don't fit that bill and don't know many people who do.

That same study ranked 558 of the most populated cities in America to determine which cities would be able to splurge this holiday season and which would likely be more reserved.

Overall, Michigan didn't have many cities ranked high. Each city in the study was given a maximum holiday budget based on several factors: Income, Age, Debt-to-Income Ratio, Monthly Income-to-Monthly Expenses Ratio and Savings-to-Monthly Expenses Ratio.

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The lowest holiday budget in Michigan is in Kalamazoo, which is also one of the lowest budgets in the entire country. Kalamazoo families are estimated to have a max holiday budget of $640, No. 545 out of 558 cities ranked. Detroit and Flint weren't far behind. Flint spenders are projected to have at most $716, ranked No. 520, while Detroit's budget is $791, ranked No. 482.

Michigan's highest budgets are in the Detroit metro area, however. Four Michigan cities landed in the top 50 budgets in the nation. Livonia, with a budget of $2,225 took the No. 50 spot. Farmington Hills and Rochester Hills ranked closely at No. 35 and No. 32 respectively. Farmington Hills max budget is expected to be $2,512 while Rochester Hills has $2,565.

The highest budget in Michigan goes to Troy, which ranked No. 26 in the nation with a max budget of $2,630.

Each Michigan city on the list and their rankings and budgets are listed below.