Holiday budgets tightening this year

LYNN – Omar Martinez typically sets his holiday spending budget at $700 and tries to stay close to it.Despite gas prices dropping below $2 a gallon and retailers already playing Yuletide music, Martinez and other local consumers are minding their dollars and cents as the holiday season looms.”I’ll probably spend half that this year,” Martinez said Tuesday morning.John Bozarjian shares Martinez’ cost-cutting mood. He typically spends $2,500 on Christmas gifts and other holiday expenses, but he is setting this year’s budget at $1,500.His cautious mood reflects a national forecast for holiday spending that is worrying retailers already pummeled by a sagging economy.In Vermont where retailers count on fall leaf peepers and winter skiers to help fill their cash registers, holiday spending worries are real.The head of the Vermont Retail Association summed up prospects for a coming holiday shopping season this way: “We just don’t know.”Tasha Wallis, the retail group’s executive director, says merchants are hoping for the best, but recent statistics don’t look good.Vermont figures compiled by economist Art Woolf show consumer retail spending was down 8.8 percent in September, with drops of 11.2 percent for restaurants and lodging, 16.4 percent for vehicle sales and 17.3 percent for real estate.Wallis said retailers are “cautiously optimistic” as they prepare for the Friday after Thanksgiving, the traditional start to the holiday shopping season, the time of the year when many stores rack up 25 to 40 percent of their sales.For her part, Mary Rosales is trying to balance living paycheck-by-paycheck against the challenge of shopping for her four children this year.Alan Chipman knows how she feels.”If you want to spend you do. Obviously, keeping your house going comes first,” he said.Wallis said storekeepers are keeping a wary eye on two factors that could hurt sales:The Canadian dollar’s value has declined relative to its U.S. counterpart since last year, when stores, especially in northern Vermont, saw a boom in business from Canadians looking for bargains.Thanksgiving’s coming relatively late on the calendar this year means there are fewer days between it and Christmas than is usually the case.”That’s a factor,” Wallis said of the short season.But she said retailers should not wallow in pessimism. “It’s also clear that nobody has canceled Christmas,” Wallis said. “There are huge opportunities for consumers.”