Six items US consumers spent less on in July 2023

We are studying US consumer dynamics on spending, income and savings. We notice that consumers are not growing their income significantly, and they are spending more, which reduces the US national 'consumer' savings rate.

We found six categories, and compiled the underlying data.

• Energy prices dropped in July.
• Transportation expenses fell broadly in July.
• Cars, trucks and vehicle purchases and leases fell.
• Miscellaneous services like funerals, cable and satellite TV, hidden securities trading commissions, and medical lab work fell.
• Sins and Charity spend (discretionary) fell.
• Home decor spent on carpets and flooring fell.
  

Energy:
Gasoline and other energy goods: -$6B (fuels, lubricants and fluids)
Natural gas: -$2.8B

Transportation:
Foreign travel by U.S. residents: -$3.4B
Parking fees and tolls: -$349M
Other road transportation service: -$278M
​Postal and delivery services -$166M
Taxicabs and ride sharing services -$145M
Moving, storage and freight: -$107M

Cars, Trucks and Vehicles:
New light trucks (purchased): -$2.44B
Used Autos (purchased): -$684M
Auto leasing: -$326M
Motor vehicles and parts: -$312M
Truck leasing: -$192M
New domestic autos: (purchased) -$115M
Other recreational vehicles (purchased): -$156M
Motorcycles (purchased): -$60M

Miscellaneous Services:
Funeral and burial services -$1.5B
Cable, Satellite and other live television services $1.44B
Other imputed indirect securities commissions (hidden commissions): -$414M
Medical laboratories: -$397M

Sins and Charities (discretionary):
Casino Gambling -$1B
Professional advocacy -$986M
Personal remittances in kind to nonresidents: -$94M
Tobacco: -$85M

Home Decor:
Carpets and other floor coverings: -$120M

This suggests that a few areas of the economy are seeing weakness, and this could impact an investor’s choices.


For example, we discount changes in energy and transportation costs unless they repeat for a few months, but we welcome the boost to the overall US economy.


We suggest gambling, tobacco, cable and satellite TV, and funeral homes are likely weak areas to invest in the short term.


For automotive makers (cars and light trucks), and recreational vehicles, this is an early sign of weakness which should be tracked into August and September when the new 2024s start to hit the market.
We hope you enjoyed this post and found it useful.


I am Jeffrey Cohen, President of US Advanced Computing Infrastructure, Inc. We are a quantum computing consultancy and investment advisory firm. For more information, visit our website here.

There are around 300 unique categories of spend that are tracked and reported monthly by the US Department of Commerce here. Although total spend increased $144B from June to July 2023, we were interested in where consumers were cutting spending. We downloaded that data in a .csv at 11am ET on August 31, 2023.