It would hardly be surprising to find that confidence surveys reflect the current state of the economy. After all,most households should be aware of recent changes in their own economic situation. A more interesting question is whether the surveys provide information about the future path of household spending that is not already contained in other popular economic indicators. We begin by presenting regressions that forecast consumer expenditure using consumer confidence, a baseline set of economic indicators,and then combining the two. We then discuss other research drawing connections between consumer confidence and consumption.