September 2026 Newsletter

Issue #115

How we spend our money is a good indicator of what we value. The average American spends approximately $18,000 per year on nonessential items, which breaks down to about $1,497 per month.

Here are some examples of what Americans typically buy each year.

OnePoll

Alcohol

The average American adult spends approximately $898 per year on alcohol, culminating in a collective national total of $228 billion annually.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis

Candy

Americans spend a record $55 billion on confectionery (chocolate, candy, gum, and mints).

National Confectioners Association (NCA)

Individual households spend an average of

$164 annually.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Car Washes

Americans collectively spend approximately $5.8 billion a year directly at retail car wash facilities.

U.S. Census Bureau

66% of Americans wash their vehicles 13 times a year. 24% of consumers visit a wash more than once a month, while 4% visit weekly.

Grand View Research

Entertainment

American households spend an average of $3,609 per year on entertainment. This represents roughly 4.6% of the average American household's total annual expenditures ($78,535). On a monthly basis, this breaks down to about $301 per month spent on recreational activities and goods.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Fireworks

The average American household typically spends around $100 annually on fireworks, but total national spending is about $2.5 billion per year.

Wallet Hub

Guns

Collectively Americans spend an estimated

$11 billion to $18 billion annually.

The Trace

The average American adult spends roughly $60 to $80 per year on firearms and ammunition, while the average gun owner spends closer to $200 to

$250 annually.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation 

Home Security

The average American homeowner spends $424 per year on home security systems. At a national scale, Americans spend roughly $21 billion annually on equipment and services, making the U.S. the most commercially significant home security market in

the world.

Consumer Electronics Association

Jewelry

Americans spend between $63 billion and $106 billion annually on jewelry and watches.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis

The typical American household spends between $90 and $214 annually on jewelry and watches.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Lawn Care

On average, an American homeowner spends around $1,500 a year on lawn care products, equipment, fuel, and maintenance.

Statista

Collectively Americans spend between $40 billion and $105 billion each year on lawn care and maintenance.

IBIS World

Lotteries

Americans spend roughly $110 billion annually on lottery tickets. Overall state lottery sales have surged over the past two decades, hitting a historic high. This is larger than what Americans spend on cinema, books, video games, music streaming, and sports tickets combined. In states that allow lotteries, the average resident spends about $320 per year.

U.S. Census Bureau

Personal Fitness/Weight Loss

The average consumer spends $112 per year on personal athletic gear, weights, and home

exercise equipment. 

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Pets

Americans spent $158 billion on their pets in 2025, and total national expenditures are projected to reach $165 billion by the end of 2026.

American Pet Products Association

$14.5 billion of this is spent on pet grooming.

American Pet Products Association

Snacks

The average American spends $719 per year on snacks, with chips and savory treats making up the largest single portion of that budget.

Cash Net USA

On a macroeconomic scale, the total U.S. snack food market size was about $180 billion in 2025, including confectionery, bakery, and health foods.

MarkNtel Advisors

Sports

The total consumer spending on sports in the United States is $388 billion, making up the largest sports market in the world. When factoring in corporate investments, media rights, and infrastructure, the broader U.S. sports industry is valued at over

$1.06 trillion.

World Data Lab

At an individual level, the average American sports fan spends $1,970 annually on their fandom, which includes event tickets, team merchandise, equipment, and sports betting.

Investopedia

Sports Gambling

In 2025, Americans legally wagered a record

$166 billion on sports betting. This is more than double the roughly $70 billion generated by the entire U.S. movie, music, book, and museum industries combined.

American Gaming Association (AGA)

For households actively participating in online betting apps, shows an average annual spend of $1,100 per household.

Investopedia

Individuals who identify as active sports bettors report spending an average of $3,284 across all forms of gambling over a 12-month span

NerdWallet Sports Betting Survey

Tobacco

For all American households, the average is about ~$300 to $400 per year for tobacco products and smoking supplies but a typical tobacco user spends around $1,000 to $1,400 each year.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Travel

Americans spend an average of $6,354 per adult annually on travel, which covers multiple trips including major vacations, quick weekend getaways, and visits to loved ones.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Spending in the U.S. is projected to reach $1.37 trillion in 2026. This represents a 1% growth from previous years, with spending expected to accelerate further into 2027.

U.S. Travel Association

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Charity

In 2025 Americans spent a record $617 billion on charity. This marked a 5.7% increase in current dollars (3.0% when adjusted for inflation) over the previous year.

Giving USA 2026 Annual Report on Philanthropy

Climate.us

The nonprofit successor to Climate.gov, delivering climate data and information to promote public climate literacy and to equip people to turn knowledge into meaningful conversations and climate-conscious actions. At a moment when critical climate information was being deleted or distorted, Climate.us stepped up to rescue key climate resources—including the U.S. Global Change Research Program's now-deleted Fifth National Climate Assessment—and to ensure the public has continued easy access to the facts. Their goal is to build an enduring, independent, and scientifically rigorous platform that the world can rely on for climate communication, education, and engagement.

Learn more.

For more on the Environment, click here.

Retold Recycling

A company founded as a dedicated solution to textile recycling, providing a sustainable solution for textiles that might otherwise end up in landfill. Features a mail-based bag service for recycling old and unwanted textiles (clothing, fabric scraps, and household items) straight from the home. Focuses on fostering new environmentally conscious behavior, placing an emphasis on building a circular economy. Learn more.

For more on the Environment, click here.

St. Francis Institute for Animals

A nonprofit organization that believes a concern for God’s creation – which includes the well-being of all creatures – is a core expression of our faith. Their work is grounded in Church teaching and informed by experts in theology and animal protection issues. Their mission is to educate and empower people to protect animals and to end the needless suffering of all God's creatures. Envisions a world where all animals live free from exploitation and are able to flourish as God intended. Learn more.

For more on the Environment, click here.

Nice Is Not a Fruit of the Spirit: Living Faithfully in Complicated Times

By Julia Seymour. In these days when Christians might be tempted to tiptoe around hot-button issues and political discourse, this book reminds us: nice is not a fruit of the Spirit. Focuses on Galatians call of the Spirit to live boldly in faith. Each chapter invites reflection and conversation to nourish authentic Christian living. Read more.

For more Public Witness resources, click here.

What Hath Justice to Do with Righteousness?: Reclaiming the Intersection of Protest

and Prayer

By Charlie E. Dates. Provides a biblical and historical overview of the bond between these two pillars of the Christian faith. Challenges our assumptions, renews our understanding, and invites us into a new movement of protest and prayer. With biblical wisdom, theological reflection, and an honest critique of cultural blind spots, declares that justice is God’s righteousness in action. Challenges assumptions, exposes divisions, and delivers a call to action for both protest and prayer. Read more.

For more Public Witness resources, click here.

Biological War: A Scenario

By Annie Jacobsen. Based on dozens of interviews with experts with high-level political, governmental, medical, and military responsibility -- considers the possibility of a lab accident or a bio-attack that could lead to a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. Looks deeply at a situation that is in some ways the opposite of a nuclear bomb: there is no mushroom cloud, no shock wave or blast. Instead, the scenario that could end the world as we know it begins with something so small, and something so malicious, that when used for evil, can only result in evil. Read more.

For more on War, click here.

Why Opting Out of Politics is a

Political Choice

A part of the TED “Idea Knock Down” series where two people with different perspectives take on big questions, featuring Danielle Roberts and Katie Paris, who discuss if it's possible to stand up for what one believe in without participating in politics. They suggest rethinking power, work and civic life on one's own terms and explore how rest, community and meaningful participation can help one stay engaged in the issues shaping one's life. Watch now.

For Politics resources, click here.

Why Economic Inequality is the Biggest Threat to Democracy

A TED Talk, featuring communications strategist Sally Kohn, who asks is authoritarianism winning or is democracy failing to deliver? She lays out how democracy has evolved before and why it must evolve again, into what she calls "Democracy 3.0" — a version that finally shares power and opportunity equally. Watch now.

For more in Economic Justice, click here.

They Stole a City: Wilmington's White Supremacist Coup and the Families Who Live with Its Legacy

By Lauren Collins. Weaves the stories of four Wilmington, North Carolina, families over 125 years to create a full accounting of the long-term effects of the 1898 white supremacist massacre and coup and its critical role in subverting American democracy. Follows the families and their descendants through the eras of segregation and Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the Civil Rights movement, and school desegregation, all the way up to the Black Lives Matter and racial justice protests in 2020, emphasizing the lasting and consequential effects of this event on the city and the people of Wilmington. In collaboration with living descendants of Black and white families, seeks to create a more complete understanding than can be drawn solely from the archives. Read more.

For more on Racism, click here.

Bridging the Rivers of Difference: A Proclamation of Unity in Resistance

By Catherine Meeks. A call for unity in the face of growing dehumanization of marginalized people. Offers collaborative strategies to fight systemic racism. Also addresses current cases with civil rights impact in areas such as zoning, voting, and immigration, and the need for unity in combating these destructive decisions. Shows that "othering" is alive and well in America and a continuation of white supremacy. Explains that within Black communities there is a hesitance to join the conversations, but the fight is one that demands solidarity. Resistance is necessary to dispel hierarchies of human value and combat the failure of institutions. Read more.

For more on Racism, click here.

The Wounded Church:

Tending to the Harm within Catholicism

By Annie Selak. Argues that the Catholic Church must confront its own injuries in order to credibly be the Church. Using a feminist framework, develops a new ecclesiology around three wounds, racism, sexism, and clericalism, that actively harm the Body of Christ and distort its witness.

Attentive to history, pastoral practice, and lived experience, shows how each wound is both inflicted by the Church and borne within the Church. Offers the resurrected body of Jesus, scarred yet no longer bleeding, as a guiding metaphor for ecclesial renewal, a body that does not deny its wounds but is transformed through them. Drawing on Karl Rahner, grounds hope in the reign of God while insisting on concrete institutional and spiritual conversion. Uncovers overlooked histories tied to racism, sexism, and the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and proposes clear theological principles for reform. Read more.

For more Justice resources, click here.

The Future of Synodality:

How We Move Forward from Here

By Kristin M Colberg & Jos Moons SJ. Looks at how the church can continue to become more synodal―more participative, open-minded, inclusive, and spiritual. Presents key aspects of synodality’s origins, its theological foundations, and its recent expressions. Offers important takeaways from the synod in the context of looking toward the future, exploring the concrete transformations of a church marked by inclusive listening. Outlinesthree types of transformation required: a renewal of attitudes and behavior, a reform of ecclesial structures and procedures, and the adoption of synodal practices. Read more.

For more Justice resources, click here.

Compassion in Practice: The Way of Jesus

By Frank Rogers Jr. This updated and revised edition, introduces the spiritual path of radical compassion Jesus walked and taught, grounded in God's extravagant love for all people. Provides a series of practices to ground and restore readers through self-compassion as they cultivate an ethic of radical care that extends not only to loved ones, neighbors, and strangers, but also to enemies, opponents, and oppressors. Illuminated with real-life stories of restorative love in action, these practices will equip people to step heart-first into a challenging world, ready to engage in a new way that beats with the pulse of compassion. Provides specific practices for compassionate social activism, more interfaith conversation, and a "compassion compass" to help orient readers as they travel the path of healing and restoration. Read more.

For more Justice resources, click here.

Shaping Hope: Higher Education in Prison

By Mary VanderGoot. Explores education behind bars and its transformative impact on individuals, communities, and society. Drawing on years of research, teaching, and advocacy, challenges misconceptions, and amplifies the voices of incarcerated students and the educators who work with them in prison. Makes the case for a more just and equitable future for those whose life journey takes them on a detour through prison. Shows that education behind bars builds a better world for all of us. Read more.

For more on the Criminal Justice System,

click here.

How I’m Helping Thousands Rebuild Their Lives After Prison

A TED Talk, featuring Susan Burton, who shares how she's helping thousands rebuild their lives — and changing the way we think about second chances. She learned from her own experience of cycling in and out of prison for years, finally finding a safe place to land and made it her mission to offer others the same. Watch now.

For more on the Criminal Justice System,

click here.

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