Survey: Public to spend less money this Christmas than in 2014

Despite the much publicised economic recovery the public still plan to spend less on Christmas this year than in 2014, according to the Irish League of Credit Unions.

ILCU’s ‘Christmas Spending Survey’ has found people expect to splash out an average of €563 on the festive period, the lowest anticipated spend since 2012. In 2013, the average expected outlay was €590 and in 2014 it was €600.

When it comes to buying presents for the children, the expected spend has also continued to drop. In 2013, the expected spend on kids’ gifts was €185, a year later it was €180. This year, the survey forecast an average of €167.

The tighter purse strings are in spite of the fact more people feel better about their financial position than 12 months ago. That was the case for 30% of respondents to the survey. In 2014, only 29% were feeling upbeat.

Perhaps the reduced expected spend could be attributed to greater public concern at how much is generally splurged on the festive period. The percentage of respondents who felt Irish people spend too much money on Christmas rose from 71% to 79%.

A large percentage of people still get themselves into debt this time of year. The survey found just 44% will have sufficient money in their monthly pay packet to cover Christmas. While that is an increase from the 36% in a similar position last year, ILCU still found 45% of all consumers will have to borrow money to get through the festive period, and 25% admit they are worried how they will cop e financially with demands that Christmas brings.

The number of respondents who believe they will have to resort to the services of a moneylender increased from 8% last year to 9% in 2015, though just 5% say they have used the option before and would again.

For those who do plunge into debt over the festive period, it will take an average of 8.5 weeks to recover from the overspend, though 4% of respondents admitted it would take them more than nine months.

Mindful money woes still make the festive period stressful for many families, ILCU advised people to be smart about their shopping, set a budget and stick to it. As it does every year, it also urged the public to think twice about using money lenders saying that to do so, can mean people start the new year “crippled” with debt. The survey also looked at where the public expect to make their Christmas purchases. One in five will travel to buy items from outlets outside Ireland, with UK stores accounting for 39% of that foreign spend. More than two thirds of consumers will go online to make their purchases — 81% will browse the internet for products before going into shops to make a purchase.

Nonetheless, a number of people still remain wary about shopping online, with 16% of respondents saying they can get worried their details will be stolen and a further 5% saying they don’t feel secure making any type of purchase online.

When it comes to grocery shopping, Tesco (31%) remains the most popular supermarket, followed by Aldi (19%), Dunnes Stores (16%) and Supervalu (15%). Just 2% expected to do their food shopping for the festive period in Marks & Spencer.