Americans are reallocating spending rather than uniformly slashing food budgets. Bank of America Institute’s analysis of 2025 card activity found grocery spending was flat year over year and restaurant spending rose 1%, while lodging and airline purchases dropped sharply. A separate Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) analysis found food and grocery purchases taking a larger share of card spending as restaurant spending’s share fell. Those findings can coexist because one measures annual growth and the other measures category shares over a different historical period.
What the latest card data says
Bank of America Institute’s 2026 review of its customers’ 2025 card transactions shows a mixed household-spending picture. Groceries recorded 0% year-over-year growth, and restaurants grew 1%. By contrast, durable goods declined 0.5%, lodging fell 2.2%, and airline spending fell 6.3%.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
| Category | 2025 year-over-year card-spending change |
|---|---|
| Groceries | 0% |
| Restaurants | +1% |
| Durable goods | -0.5% |
| Lodging | -2.2% |
| Airlines | -6.3% |
A zero-growth grocery result does not mean households stopped buying food. It means total grocery dollars on that card network were roughly unchanged from 2024 to 2025. The 1% restaurant increase likewise does not prove that people were dining out more often; inflation, higher menu prices, changes in party size and other factors can lift nominal spending even when visits or quantities fall.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
Why the CFPB finds a shift toward food at home
The CFPB’s 2025 report, The Consumer Credit Card Market, examines a different period and uses category shares rather than annual growth rates. It states: “During the same period, more consumers dined at home, with food and grocery spending rising from 10 to 13 percent while restaurant spending declined from 7.6 to 5.1 percent.” Together, restaurants, food and groceries accounted for about 18% of card spending in the CFPB analysis, close to their combined proportion in 2019.
#1 Best Overall
| Spending category | Share at earlier point | Share at later point |
|---|---|---|
| Food and groceries | 10% | 13% |
| Restaurants | 7.6% | 5.1% |
These percentages describe each category’s slice of total card spending, not whether its dollar total rose or fell. If restaurant spending weakens while other purchases also change, groceries can represent a larger share even when grocery dollars are flat. Conversely, a modest nominal increase in restaurant dollars can still represent a smaller share than before if total card spending grows faster elsewhere.
Are households replacing restaurant meals with groceries?
The data is consistent with some meal substitution toward home cooking, but it does not measure every meal or every household directly. The CFPB’s wording supports more consumers dining at home during its analyzed period. Bank of America’s 2025 figures show grocery dollars holding steady and restaurant dollars edging up, so they do not establish a nationwide dollar-for-dollar transfer from restaurants to supermarkets in 2025.
Rank #2
- Ideal for Gifting
- Ideal for a bookworm
- Compact for travelling
What can be inferred
- Food remains a major budget priority even as households pull back on discretionary services such as travel.
- Some consumers may be preparing more meals at home, using groceries to replace restaurant occasions or reducing the frequency of restaurant visits while paying higher prices on remaining visits.
- Spending changes are uneven by income, household needs and category; the available figures do not show that every American or every income group cut restaurant and grocery dollars.
What cannot be inferred
- The card figures are not a census of all payments, cash purchases or households.
- They do not identify how many restaurant visits occurred, how much food was purchased, or whether a grocery basket contained more or fewer items.
- They do not isolate inflation from changes in real consumption.
Travel cuts make the food pattern easier to understand
The same Bank of America dataset shows the largest 2025 declines in airlines (-6.3%) and lodging (-2.2%), not groceries. That points to households prioritizing necessities while postponing or reducing expensive discretionary trips. A stable grocery total alongside weaker travel can therefore reflect a broader rebalancing of budgets rather than a collapse in food consumption.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Digital habits add context, but not a U.S. grocery estimate
Visa Business and Economic Insights reported that “Across all six markets studied, digital commerce, streaming and food delivery adoption increased between 2018 and 2026.” This multinational finding helps explain why a meal can move between a restaurant, a delivery platform and a grocery transaction without disappearing from a household’s food budget. It is not a United States-only estimate and should not be used to calculate American grocery or restaurant growth.
How to read the newest credit-card indicators
A CFPB dashboard snapshot from 2026 provides market context rather than a direct food-spending measure. In March 2026, 8.4 million cards originated with $48.9 billion in aggregate limits on new cards. In July 2026, originations were up 11.9% year over year while inquiries were down 14.8% year over year. Those figures describe credit availability and applications, not restaurant or grocery purchases, so they should not be treated as evidence that food spending rose or fell.
Four checks for interpreting card-spending headlines
- Identify the metric. Confirm whether a release reports dollar growth, a share of card spending, transaction counts or another measure.
- Match the time window. Bank of America’s figures cover 2025 year-over-year changes; the CFPB percentages cover its defined historical period; they are not the same comparison.
- Check geography and coverage. Proprietary bank and network data represent participating cardholders, while CFPB combines multiple sources. Visa’s result covers six markets, not only the United States.
- Separate prices from quantities. Inflation can increase nominal card dollars even when households buy fewer items or make fewer visits.
What this means for a household budget
For an individual budget, the practical test is your own transaction history. Compare grocery and restaurant dollars, transaction counts and average ticket size over the same months. If restaurant dollars are down but grocery dollars are flat, the change may be fewer restaurant occasions, higher supermarket prices, or both. If both categories rise, check whether prices or household size explain the increase before concluding that consumption grew.
Rank #4
The national evidence supports a cautious conclusion: Americans appear to be protecting food purchases while trimming some discretionary services, and the CFPB’s longer-period data is compatible with more meals eaten at home. It does not support a simple claim that all Americans are cutting both restaurants and groceries, nor that every grocery dollar directly replaces a restaurant dollar.
Quick Recap
Best Value
- It can be a gift option
- Comes with secure packaging
- Helpful in various ways
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
