<\/p>\n
Wherever you look, whatever metric you use, Americans are feeling the pain of stubbornly high inflation, so most are increasingly turning to buy now, pay later options to afford high- and medium-priced purchases.<\/p>\n
A little over six in 10 U.S. adults (64%) have tried BNPL at some point in their lives, according to a new survey from Omni Calculator. Of the Americans who have tried it at least once, 70% made at least one of those purchases in 2025. <\/p>\n
On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its March consumer price index results. Driven by the Iran War, consumer prices jumped a seasonally adjusted 0.9%, led by energy prices that increased nearly 11% in the month.<\/p>\n
Gasoline of all types saw prices increase at a seasonally adjusted rate of 21.2% after falling 3.2% in January<\/p>\n
The war that has pitted the U.S., Israel, and their Gulf State allies against Iran has disrupted the flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil flows. <\/p>\n
March was the worst month for inflation since April 2024, according to\u00a0CNBC, led by a rise in gas prices, which, according to the BLS, accounted for nearly three-quarters of the monthly increase. <\/p>\n
It’s in this stubborn economic environment that nearly two-thirds of Americans are turning to BNPL for at least one purchase. <\/p>\n
Millennials, men lead the BNPL revolution<\/p>\n
With elevated inflation seemingly here to stay, many Americans are turning to buy now, pay later options to finance their purchases. The U.S. market alone is expected to reach $127.94 billion this year, according to Omni Calculator.<\/p>\n
Of all the interesting tidbits from their survey (electronics accounted for the majority of purchases, PayPal was the most used BNPL service, etc.), perhaps the most telling data point is that more Millennials are using the service than other groups. <\/p>\n
Omni Calculator BNPL survey findings25% of purchases were electronics (phones, laptops, or similar devices)29% of users relied on PayPal’s service.$500The most common purchase amount at which 36% of users say they used BNPL “to make large purchases more manageable”The BNPL market is expected to more than double to\u00a0$258.40 billion by 2031\u00a0from\u00a0$127.94 billion in 2026. source: Omni Calculator<\/p>\n
74% of Millennials who responded to the survey have used a BNPL service at least once in their lives, well ahead of Gen Z (57%), Gen X (62%), and Baby Boomers (60%). That number then rises to 83% of Millennials who used BNPL in 2025.<\/p>\n
More men than women used the service (73% vs 68%), but the survey found that women used it more often. <\/p>\n
57% of males used the service once or twice during the year, compared to just 43% of women, and 27% of men used it once every 2-3 months, vs. 23% for women. However, 27% of women used BNPL about once a month, compared to 13% for men, and 7% of women used BNPL weekly or more often, compared to 2% for men.<\/p>\n
“Among men, the most common starting point is\u00a0$500\u00a0or more, reported by\u00a034%. For women, the most common threshold is\u00a0$100-$199, cited by\u00a028%. Women are also more likely to consider BNPL for smaller purchases, with\u00a020%\u00a0reporting using it for purchases under\u00a0$100, compared with8%\u00a0of men,” according to Omni Calculator. <\/p>\n
American card usage to pay for housing has increased since the start of the Iran War<\/p>\n
While short-term loans are being used to finance relatively small purchases, Americans are also increasingly relying on their credit and debit cards to pay for bigger purchases since the war started, according to the latest Bank of America data.<\/p>\n
Total card spending jumped 4.7% year over year in the week ending March 28,\u00a0Yahoo Finance\u00a0reported, citing BofA.<\/p>\n
Related: High gas prices, Iran war take huge toll on U.S. consumer confidence<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, the gains were led by gas spending, which increased more than 20% year over year. Also, perhaps unsurprisingly, the second-largest increase was in online shopping, which rose by more than 11% year over year.<\/p>\n
Excluding gas spending, card usage was steady at 3.7%.<\/p>\n
Americans are also using their cards more to pay for lodging, by about 2.77% on average, compared with a year ago. Coupled with lower department-store spending, which is trending lower, and furniture and home improvement spending, which is declining, it seems some Americans are tightening their belts amid the financial impacts and economic uncertainty from the war.<\/p>\n
Another surprising nugget from the data is that higher-income households are relying more on card spending than households in other income brackets.<\/p>\n
Consumer sentiment drops on concerns about Iran war, rising gas prices<\/p>\n
Consumer sentiment\u00a0fell nearly 6% in March to its lowest level since December 2025. Perhaps underscoring just how unpopular this war is, the declines were seen across age and political party, noted\u00a0Silver Bulletin.<\/p>\n
Middle- and higher-income consumers, \u201cbuffeted by both escalating gas prices and volatile financial markets in the wake of the Iran conflict, exhibited particularly large drops in sentiment,\u201d according to the\u00a0latest University of Michigan Survey of Consumers.<\/p>\n
UM\u2019s Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 53.3% for its final reading in March, down 5.8% from February and down 6.5% from where it was a year ago. Consumer sentiment fell to its lowest reading since December 2025.<\/p>\n
Consumers are feeling even less optimistic about the future of the economy than they are about the present, and it doesn\u2019t take a trusted survey that has been around for 80 years to understand why.<\/p>\n
According to Morgan Stanley, every $1-per-gallon increase in gas prices results in a $450-per-year increase in fuel costs for gas-powered vehicles, assuming 27 mpg and 12,000 miles driven per year.<\/p>\n
Related: Rising gas prices force Americans to make unexpected changes<\/p>\n
#Millennials #spark #BNPL #revolution #inflation #surges<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wherever you look, whatever metric you use, Americans are feeling the pain of stubbornly high…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[259],"tags":[8077,176,224,5442,7686,304],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}