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CPG

The 2026 CPG Wallet: Is Household Spending Shifting?

59% of low-income, 43% of mid-income, and 34% of high-income households are recalibrating how they spend. The question isn’t whether your customers are still buying. It’s whether they’re buying your brand — or just buying your discount.

The brands growing through this market aren’t the ones with the lowest prices. They’re the ones that have stopped renting customers and started building them.

Based on 2,021 U.S. CPG consumers surveyed in February 2026, this report maps how spending recalibration is playing out across income tiers and three CPG subverticals: Beauty & Personal Care, Food & Beverage, and Health & Wellness. It surfaces the specific behaviors behind the renting dynamic: promotion-waiting, private label adoption, purchase deferral, and brand switching under promotional conditions. And it gives you a five-question diagnostic for assessing your exposure before it shows up in your numbers.

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59% of low-income, 43% of mid-income, and 34% of high-income households are recalibrating how they spend. The question isn’t whether your customers are still buying. It’s whether they’re buying your brand — or just buying your discount.

The brands growing through this market aren’t the ones with the lowest prices. They’re the ones that have stopped renting customers and started building them.

Based on 2,021 U.S. CPG consumers surveyed in February 2026, this report maps how spending recalibration is playing out across income tiers and three CPG subverticals: Beauty & Personal Care, Food & Beverage, and Health & Wellness. It surfaces the specific behaviors behind the renting dynamic: promotion-waiting, private label adoption, purchase deferral, and brand switching under promotional conditions. And it gives you a five-question diagnostic for assessing your exposure before it shows up in your numbers.

What You’ll Learn

  • Why the renting dynamic now operates at every income level, including high-income households where 4 in 10 waited for a promotion before their last CPG purchase

  • How recalibration is playing out differently across Beauty & Personal Care, Food & Beverage, and Health & Wellness, with subvertical-specific data on dupe risk, accepted substitution, and purchase deferral

  • Why stable category spend is the condition that makes the renting dynamic hardest to see, and the brand defensibility signals (promo reliance, repeat rate, first-choice share) that actually reveal it

  • How promotional windows are increasingly functioning as trial moments for competitor brands, and what that means for your acquisition and retention strategy

  • The five-question CMO diagnostic for determining whether your brand is building a customer base or renting one at a cost that compounds with every cycle

Your category may look stable. Your brand's share position is a different question. This report helps you answer it.