Dive Brief:

• Savings from lower fuel prices seem to finally be spurring Americans to spend, but that might not help many retailers.

• Consumers, especially in the lower- to middle-income brackets, appear to be spending the extra dollars at the gas station, transferring the savings to tobacco purchases or buying fast food at nearby restaurants, according to a report from the JPMorgan Chase Institute, which analyzed 57 million credit and debit-card purchases.

• Restaurants are the winners of the windfall, taking up some 18% of the savings, with the next biggest share spent on groceries, and then on entertainment, according to the report.

Dive Insight:

The American Automobile Association has found that bargain basement gas prices—the lowest since 2009—meant a $115 billion windfall to consumers in 2015, or $550 for each driver. But apparently that didn’t do all that much for retailers, mostly because many consumers used up the difference buying cigarettes and junk food.

“The biggest share of savings is going to the sin goods: the cigarettes, the booze, the junk food,” Craig Johnson, president of retail researcher Customer Growth Partners, told Bloomberg. “You get a small portion going into savings, but truly not that much.”

Some Americans are also paying a bit more for gas overall—at least those opting to drive more, which is another effect of the lower fuel prices. That’s causing more accidents, which could also take up some of the savings.

The takeaway? Don’t look for low gas prices to be a major part of most retailers’ sales reports.