A new survey from Mint.com shows some interesting trends in holiday shopping: Men plan to spend more, on average, but women plan to start earlier.
Men surveyed plan to spend &775.78, while women in the survey plan to spend $724.23 on gifts. Out of that total spending, men said they plan to spend slightly less on gifts for family members ($416) than women do ($427), but more on gifts for friends ($89 v. $62) and co-workers ($30 v. $17).
Part of the reason for the discrepancy could be that women are simply thriftier. Of those surveyed, 60.7 percent of men said they planned to shop in discount stores, compared with 69.7 percent of women. Men are also more likely to shop at electronics stores (38.7 percent v. 25.4 percent), which could lead to more big ticket purchases by men.
Another could be that women start their shopping earlier, on average, than men. By November, 46.4 percent of women have already started their shopping, compared with 35.9 percent of men. And almost twice as many men, 4.6 percent, plan to wait until the last two weeks of December. Just 2.5 percent of women say they're going to wait that long.
How about you? Have you started shopping yet? If you're a guy, do you think you'll spend more than the women in your life on the holidays (or vice versa)?