Average spending on holidays up 3.4%

The start of the holiday shopping season is underway, which means if you haven’t started shopping for the holidays yet, you will soon.

The average person will spend just under $1,000 on gifts this year, according to a study by personal-finance website WalletHub’s annual Holiday Budgets by City report.

That’s an increase of 3.4% since last year, and more than 20% over the past two years.

After studying 570 cities, South Bend is ranked at 484, with an average holiday budget of $452, which is less than Gary, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Lafayette, but higher than Bloomington and Muncie.

The city with the biggest holiday budget is Naperville, IL, averaging just under $2,400 on presents for friends and family.