If you spent more at the gas pump—an✤d less everywhere e✅lse—in August, you’re not alone. 

With gas prices higher in August, consumers cut back on other kinds of spending, economists at credit card network Visa said in a report this week. Visa’s spending momentum index, a measure of how much consumers are shelling out based on credit card transaction data, fell to 97.2 in August from 97.4 in July. A sub-measure of spending on gas surged 16.4 points.

The average price of a gallon of gas nationw𓆏ide jumped to $3.80 on Aug. 2 from $3.56 on July 16, according to data from AAA, and hovered above $3.80 ever since.

Spending on necessities such as groceries, medicine, and tolls fell to its lowest in Visa’s records going back to 2014, other than the onset of the pandemic in April 2020.

Visa’s data shows higher gas prices have added to recent headaches for household budgets, and echoes a consumer confidence survey from August that showed high gas prices were making people feel worse about their own finances and the economy.

Consumer spending, the main engine of economic growth, has stayed resilient in the face economic headwinds, helping to hold off a long-predicted recession. It may be getting harder for people to keep spending, however, as the Federal Reserve’s 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:campaign of an🌳ti-inflation interest rate hikes—which has raised 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:borrowing ♋📖costs for all kinds of loans—continues to drag on the economy. 

Cracks are starting to appear in the formerly solid labor market, as 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:companies cut back on hiring, partly because high interest rates make it 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:harder ♋to finance hiring and expansion. Banks, wary of the uncertain economic outlook, have cut back on extending loans to households, making it harder to getꦕ🌠 credit cards and other kinds of consumer credit.