Woman choosing books in a modern bookstoreApichat Panyakaew | E+ | Getty Images It’s becoming more expensive to have fun in the United States, but consumers are splurging anyway, seeking out experiences ranging from outdoor activities to video games. Bank of America’s latest analysis suggested that “funflation” (the higher cost of fun) may be rising, but consumers are not cutting back. In fact, spending on hobbies, which ranges from crafts and hobby stores to retailers selling skiing, hiking, camping or diving equipment, grew 7.9% in August 2026, year over year, according to the bank. This doubled the growth in actual transactions, which increased 3.4%, meaning consumers are making more hobby purchases overall, in addition to spending more on those hobbies. “Inflation is the rising cost of leisure activities, seen in prices from gasoline for weekend cars to ice cream on vacation,” John Gathergood, an economics professor at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, told CNBC. The latest Consumer Price Index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the recreation index, which includes video and audio, pet and pet services, sporting goods, photography and recreational reading rose 2.7% in the 12 months through August. Meanwhile, sales at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument and bookstore stores rose 10.7% in the 12 months through August, outpacing the 6% increase in total U.S. retail and food service sales during the same period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Monthly Advance Retail Trade Report. “When prices rise, consumers may substitute activities,” Gathergood said. “More hobbies at home could replace vacations away. More food cooked at home could replace meals away from home. Therefore, people may spend more on hobbies, but they spend less on other activities that hobbies are replacing.” Travel becomes more expensive BofA analysts said the bank’s card data suggested the growth in “hobby spending” in recent months may be because people are balancing “a move away from travel due to higher prices due to rising fuel costs,” while jet fuel prices have risen thanks to the US-Iran war. Their analysis excluded travel from their hobby categories. Jet fuel prices were $194 per barrel for the week ending Sept. 18, up 116% from the previous year’s average, according to the International Air Travel Association’s Jet Fuel Price Monitor. Airfare prices in the United States have increased 26.5% year over year, according to federal data from August. “By foregoing traveling abroad, consumers can free up substantial amounts of cash to spend on hobbies at home,” said Gathergood of the University of Nottingham. Why flights are so expensive and will likely remain so Dan Wasiolek, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, told CNBC that the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated a shift toward “spending on experiences rather than ‘things,'” even as consumer confidence and savings come under pressure. Wasiolek noted that higher-income families have continued to travel despite higher costs, and ordinary Americans also said they would spend on travel during the summer period. They planned to spend an average of nearly $2,900 on summer travel, according to a PWC survey of more than 2,000 adults conducted in April. About 71% of respondents said they expect to spend the same or more than they did last summer. Generation Z versus millennials BofA’s analysis found that older millennials spent the most on hobbies in the three months through August, spending more than twice as much per consumer as Generation Z, the cohort BofA identified as the lowest spender. “To us, this suggests that these generations are likely gravitating most of their spending toward less expensive hobbies like arts, crafts, and board games,” the analysts wrote. “It is also possible that this reflects a shift towards more ‘grandma-basic’ activities such as knitting, sewing or baking.” BofA’s analysis found huge growth in per-person spending on video games across all age groups in the 12 months to August, and even Generation Z, the generation with the smallest increase, spent 20% more.
