Valentine’s Day is the holiday known for love, but it involves more than just romance. Money is a lesser known key factor in the holiday of love, with Americans spending billions of dollars on the holiday each year. Last year America set a new record of 19.7 billion dollars, according to National Retail Federation, spent on jewelry, flowers, chocolates, cards, etc.

With the average American spending 136.57 dollars on the holiday, Valentine’s Day will rake in about 18.2 billion dollars this year for the economy. Over 4 billion will be spent on jewelry alone; this holiday sure knows how to stack up the cash. Also, almost 2 billion dollars will be spent on candy or chocolate, and another 2 billion dollars on flowers. Not only do people spent money on their significant others, but it was also shown that 20 percent of people celebrating Valentine’s Day will buy their pets a gift (NRF). 

It is proven that men spend more for Valentine’s Day than women. This statistic seems to play into the fact that there are about 9 million marriage proposals on the day of love (NRF). For many, romance really is in the air on the 14th of February.

This holiday based on love makes more money for the U.S. economy than most people would think, but this year the spending will drop by about a billion dollars. Even though only a little more than half of Americans actually celebrate Valentine’s Day, it is the still one of the top spending holidays.