Household spending dipped a bit in December, however, this is more to do with the ABS’s seasonal adjustment playing catch up with reality than any real slowdown in spending.
For the December 2025:
🏘️ Household spending was down 0.4% MoM
🏘️ Household spending was up 5.0% YoY
🏘️ Total spending in December was $78.9 billion
As noted above, while spending was down slightly on the ABS’s seasonally adjusted numbers, the trend series continues to show growth.
This has been an issue with the seasonally adjusted numbers over the last couple of years, as the peak household shopping season have been pulled forward by sales events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Of most interest will be whether we see a real drop in spending in January, and if so, how big the drop is. That will give us a much clearer picture of how strongly household demand is pumping.