Christmas Blues For Hard-Up Brits
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
As the festive season approaches, the struggles that everyday people go through have been highlighted.
David Kuo, head of personal finance at money website Fool, said that there are large numbers of people across the country who are simply living “from hand to mouth” and are therefore struggling to put any money aside in time for Christmas.
The continuing squeeze on finances being caused as a result of the credit crunch is behind such difficulty in the run-up to Christmas, Mr Kuo said, arguing that this increased expenditure on everyday household bills has stopped people from saving any of their hard earned cash for Christmas.
Rising costs associated with energy bills, motoring, mortgage payments and insurance, as well as food price inflation, has meant that peoples everyday outgoings have risen and disposable income left at the end of each month has fallen away. Therefore, it is increasingly difficult to plan ahead for events such as Christmas where expenditure increases, as there is less ability to put money to one side each month, Mr Kuo said.
One way that people may be able to plan their finances so they have funds available over the Christmas season is to take out a low rate personal loan, as this may help them to budget payments over a longer period of time.
And it is budgeting for the festive season that Mr Kuo suggests for those that are in a situation where they have not been putting money aside each month. “There are so many people who are just living from hand to mouth at the moment, one of the big problems is while it is ideally the right thing to do to put money to one side, practically it becomes very difficult to do so. What people need to do between now and Christmas is budget in some ways,” he said. Mr Kuo added that it may be wise for individuals to try and find the money they think they will spend on Christmas presents from somewhere. By budgeting successfully, large amounts of debt spread over a number of different credit cards, for example, may be avoided.
However, despite these tips for a successful Christmas, research from a number of building societies has shown that people are currently planning on cutting back their level of expenditure for this festive season.
Birmingham Midshires research found that some 78 per cent of Britons are taking steps to make this Christmas an affordable one. Overall, budgets for Christmas have fallen by 102 pounds, with Britons planning on forking out just over 600 pounds this year on their celebrations. There has also been a drop in the number of people that plan to put their Christmas spending on credit cards, the research found, noting that 11 per cent of people plan to use their plastic for spending this season - down from 41 per cent of people in 2006.
It seems, however, that it is not just Christmas that is a concern for individuals. Recent research from Close Investments suggested that the majority of people are concerned about the country suffering from recession during the winter months.
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