All Myshelle Bey’s 4-year-old daughter wants for Christmas is a Barbie Dreamhouse. The toy costs around $200, which is cost prohibitive for the single mother from Boston.

“She has had her heart set on it all year,” Bey said. “I’m sitting here determining which bill would I be OK with being behind on to give my child the Christmas that she deserves.”

As it is, paying for basic necessities such as utilities, rent and groceries and managing her daughter’s severe asthma has not been easy for Bey. Then, in October, the 29-year-old had to resume making student loan payments after the pandemic pause ended. Those payments are $150 per month, which add to the financial pressures Bey — who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science — now faces. Her student loans are under $10,000 and stem from her time at another college, which she left without a degree.

With no family members she can turn to for money and the return of student loan payments, Bey is particularly feeling the financial pinch this holiday season, and she’s not alone.

In a November U.S. News and World Report survey of 1,202 respondents with federal student loan debt, 76 percent say that the return of payments will reduce their holiday shopping budget. Fifty-four percent say they will spend less on gifts for family and friends, 41 percent say they will have smaller holiday meals, and 33 percent say they can’t afford to travel to see friends or family.

A Credit Karma poll of 1,000 adults from October identified a similar trend. It found that 28 percent of Gen Zers and millennials say student loan repayments will make the holiday season unaffordable this year compared with 15 percent of Gen Xers and four percent of baby boomers. In addition, 32 percent of Gen Zers and 25 percent of millennials say repayments will make traveling home for the holidays too expensive.

“Ever since I’ve started paying back student loans, it has made life a lot harder,” said Bey, a former participant in one of the housing programs run by Economic Mobility Pathways (EMPath), a Boston-based national nonprofit that helps low-income families working toward financial stability. “Yes, single moms are offered certain programs for free [Christmas] gifts, but half of the time it’s not gifts that really are for your child’s age range, depending on where you’re getting it from. My daughter doesn’t really care for building blocks and Legos.”

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Myshelle Bey is a former EMPath program participant.