Valentine's Day is Saturday, and when it comes to showering their sweetheart with a gift, most people will end up struggling to do something creative, only to end up actually doing something closer to a lame stereotype. According to exclusive data provided to CNBC by Cardlytics, a credit-card linked marketing firm, we can see exactly how common the top gifts are.
Most romantic city: Tucson?
We can rank cities by how much they increase spending on typical Valentine's Day categories during the first half of February, according to the data. Tuscon, Arizona, tops all cities with a 68 percent jump.
The least romantic city is Portland, Oregon—with a mere 15 percent increase in spending during this time.
Lovers in the nation's largest city, New York, are a practical bunch, not sticking out with excessive spending—no different than such places as San Francisco and Anchorage, Alaska.
Valentine's Day increase in spending:
- 68% - Tucson
- 46% - Las Vegas
- 37% - San Francisco
- 36% - Anchorage
- 35% - New York
- 15% - Portland
How did people spend their dollars?
People spent their money in exactly the same way you would think: jewelry, flowers and clothing. Here's the actual dollar count on top gifts last year, according to data on the Cardlytics network, representing 70 percent of U.S. households.
Biggest spending on Valentine's Gifts:
- $52.2 million - flowers
- $50 million - jewelry
- $38.3 million - apparel
- $18.6 million - specialty gifts
- $7.2 million - movies
- $7.1 million - restaurants
- $1.2 million - salons and spas
Combining the typical gifts is predictable, too. Obviously people are aware that flowers, jewelry and clothing are typical gifts, so they think by combining them they are being creative. Not really.
The most typical combinations of Valentine's gift:
- Clothing and specialty gift
- Clothing and movie
- Movie and specialty gift
- Clothing and jewelry
- Clothing and restaurant
- Flowers and gift
- Movie and flowers
- Movie and restaurant
- Clothing and flowers
- Restaurant and gift