Skip to main content
Bank of AmericaLaunch

'Funflation' is on the rise as hobbies get pricier, but consumers keep spending anyway

What happened

Bank of America's latest analysis suggests that "funflation" - the increased cost of fun - may be rising, but consumers aren't cutting back.

Source

Article excerpt

Highlighted: the sentence this signal was extracted from

In this article It's getting more expensive to have fun in America, but consumers are splurging anyway, seeking out experiences ranging from outdoor activities to video games. The Bank of America's latest analysis suggested that "funflation" - the increased cost of fun - may be rising, but consumers aren't cutting back. In fact, spending on hobbies, which ranges from arts and crafts and hobby shops to retailers selling skiing, hiking, camping, or scuba diving gear, grew 7.9% in August 2026, year on year, per the bank. This was double the growth of actual transactions, which were up 3.4%, meaning consumers are making more hobby purchases overall, as well as spending more on those hobbies. "Funflation is the escalating cost of leisure activities, which is seen across prices from gas for weekend cars to ice creams on holiday," John Gathergood, an economics professor at the University of Nottingham in the U.K., told CNBC. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index data found that the recreation index, which includes video and audio, pets 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 book stores rose 10.7% in the 12 months through August, outpacing the 6% increase in total U.S. retail and food-services sales over the same period...

Keep reading with a free account

The rest of this article, and every signal for Bank of America, is in your free account.

Extracted by Autobound

From the Signal API record
Event
Launch

What this signalsA launch often needs new go-to-market and support spend.

Product
funflation analysis

The full record

From the Signal API record

Topics and mentions

Product tags

  • report

Extraction

Confidence
90%
Detected
Sep 27, 2026
signal_type
news
signal_subtype
launches

Use this data

Get every launch signal for Bank of America and the companies you sell to, in the tools you already use.

  1. Ask Claude about it

    Connect Autobound to Claude, Claude Code or Cursor with MCP. Then ask: “What changed at Bank of America this week?”

  2. Send it to your own tools

    The Signal API returns launch signals for any list of companies as JSON, for your CRM, warehouse or app.

  3. Try it free

    Sign up and spend your free credits on the companies you sell to.

    Start Free1,000 free credits

The API returns more than this page shows

This page shows a preview. The full news record in the Signal API and MCP can also have these 8 fields. Some fields are empty for some signals.

Company

  • linkedin_urlValue in the API
  • industriesValue in the API
  • employee_count_lowValue in the API
  • employee_count_highValue in the API
  • revenueValue in the API
  • descriptionValue in the API

Signal

  • signal_nameValue in the API
  • associationValue in the API
Show the full JSONThe record on this page and the API request

GET /v1/signals/56f85b2b-f076-3740-e454-755c53217399 returns this record as JSON. POST /v1/companies/enrich returns every signal for bankofamerica.com.

{
  "signal_id": "56f85b2b-f076-3740-e454-755c53217399",
  "signal_type": "news",
  "signal_subtype": "launches",
  "detected_at": "2026-09-27T05:00:02+00:00",
  "company": {
    "name": "Bank of America",
    "domain": "bankofamerica.com"
  },
  "data": {
    "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/27/funflation-consumer-spending-pricier-hobbies.html",
    "title": "'Funflation' is on the rise as hobbies get pricier, but consumers keep spending anyway",
    "excerpt": "In this article It's getting more expensive to have fun in America, but consumers are splurging anyway, seeking out experiences ranging from outdoor activities to video games. The Bank of America's latest analysis suggested that \"funflation\" - the increased cost of fun - may be rising, but consumers aren't cutting back. In fact, spending on hobbies, which ranges from arts and crafts and hobby shops to retailers selling skiing, hiking, camping, or scuba diving gear, grew 7.9% in August 2026, year on year, per the bank. This was double the growth of actual transactions, which were up 3.4%, meaning consumers are making more hobby purchases overall, as well as spending more on those hobbies. \"Funflation is the escalating cost of leisure activities, which is seen across prices from gas for weekend cars to ice creams on holiday,\" John Gathergood, an economics professor at the University of Nottingham in the U.K., told CNBC. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index data found that the recreation index, which includes video and audio, pets 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 book stores rose 10.7% in the 12 months through August, outpacing the 6% increase in total U.S. retail and food-services sales over the same period...",
    "product": "funflation analysis",
    "summary": "Bank of America's latest analysis suggests that \"funflation\" - the increased cost of fun - may be rising, but consumers aren't cutting back.",
    "planning": false,
    "image_url": "https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/108367899-1790316607637-gettyimages-2257694906-_dsc5481.jpeg?v=1790316634&w=1920&h=1080",
    "confidence": 0.9,
    "product_data": {
      "name": "funflation analysis",
      "full_text": "The Bank of America's latest analysis",
      "fuzzy_match": false
    },
    "product_tags": [
      "report"
    ],
    "published_at": "2026-09-27T05:00:02Z",
    "article_sentence": "The Bank of America's latest analysis suggested that \"funflation\" - the increased cost of fun - may be rising, but consumers aren't cutting back."
  }
}

Long text fields are shortened on this page.

Looking up one signal by its id is free. Enrich costs 2 credits per signal returned; a call with no results is free.