Gas Prices Are Down: We’re Spending More on Restaurants and Groceries, Less at Convenience Stores

What: Gas prices are the lowest they have been since 2009, so what are we doing with our savings? According to a new report by Atlanta-based Cardlytics, we are spending a lot of those savings on dining out and groceries, and much less at convenience stores and for office supplies.

• Both full service restaurants and fast food/quick serve restaurants have seen an uptick in their bottom line.

• The average money saved each month by paying less at the pump is just over $20, but when multiplied across consumers that can be billions in shifting spending.

• Gas stations are seeing an average of a 20-percent decrease in store purchases.

• Those who are not spending the savings on food are spending more on home improvement, which saw an average of a seven percent increase.

Interviews: Dawn Brun of Cardlytics

Methodology: The information was collected from purchase data sourced from more than 1,500 financial institutions. The analysis looked at credit cards, debit cards, ACH and bill pay transactions from more than 120 million bank accounts.

About Cardlytics (www.cardlytics.com)

Cardlytics® is a purchase intelligence platform that makes all marketing more relevant and measurable. Our patented technology measures and connects trillions in purchases to millions of consumers. We partner with major financial institutions, including Bank of America, Lloyds Banking Group and FIS, to provide Card-Linked Loyalty programs, which deliver significant savings to customers and revenue to banks, securely and without any personally identifiable information ever leaving the bank.