Excess savings peaked at $2.1 trillion in August 2021, far exceeding the projected trend line from before the pandemic.
Explain it how you want, but when you have a figure that's gone from $2.1 trillion to $190 billion among the same 330 million people, something interesting has happened. The standard explanation isn't that the stimulus checks were a significant factor, but rather that you had two years of people not traveling, not attending events, not really going out to eat, and generally having significantly fewer opportunities to spend. Now that that's ended, we've seen a year of people trying to make up for that lost time, going on trips, and generally splurging a bit.
Anecdotally, I saved a ton on money in 2020 on a pretty mediocre salary because literally my only expenses were rent and groceries.