About one-third of Canadian shoppers went over budget during the winter holiday season and many are changing their spending habits in the new year to make up for it, according to a survey by digital bank Koho.
A third of shoppers cited social expectations around gift giving as an influence in spending. Among shoppers who went over budget, the share of those influenced by social expectations was 43%. Younger Canadians felt this social pressure more strongly, with 49% of those born after 1996 citing expectations around gift giving as a factor in their spending.
Two-thirds of those who shopped during the holiday season said they’re making at least one spending habit change in January, leading with eating out less (47%), followed by delaying discretionary spending (38%). These adjustments were most pronounced among those who overspent, with 59% planning to eat out less and 50% planning to delay discretionary purchases.
A quarter of holiday shoppers said they weren’t confident in their financial situation after the holidays, rising to a third among those who went over budget.
While shoppers tend to go on a financial diet after a spree, they didn’t cut back on savings, Faye Lucas, head of consumer trust at Koho, said in an interview. “People are figuring out ways to automate [saving]. They’re not thinking about it as a sort of discretionary expense that they actively think about each month, so it didn’t kind of come up as the thing that they were going to cut back on when they had recuperated from December.”
The use of financial tools that extended budgets spiked in November and December, with buy now, pay later financing rising 23.4% and overdraft usage increasing 24.5% compared to October and November, the survey found.
But instead of using these tools on impulse purchases the week before Christmas or during a Boxing Day sale, consumers used them at the end of the month as a cash flow bridge, Lucas said. People are using pay later and overdraft tools to smooth out cash flow as buffers to help them get through months with higher expenses or less income, particularly as Gen Z incomes are more volatile.
The survey was conducted from September 2025 to January 2026. It involved 1,317 Canadian adults.