Millions still catching up with debt from last Christmas
December 24, 2007
With Christmas fast approaching many consumers are getting geared up to spend, spend, spend, with their credit cards at the ready. Using a credit card to pay for Christmas purchases has become a popular solution for many shoppers, enabling them to enjoy flexibility, convenience, and ease.
However, for many others it can simply add to their already spiralling debt levels. Recent reports suggest that millions of us are still paying off our credit cards from last Christmas, and any further spending on cards this year could lead to mounting debt that is going to prove difficult to repay.
According to the report around four million people, equating to around 4.4% of the adult population, are still paying for Christmas from last year, with outstanding credit card balances resulting from putting Christmas purchases on their cards in 2006. The report was compiled from a survey carried out by MoneyExpert.com, which involved 2000 participants. The survey showed that one in every ten adults was still repaying Christmas debts from last year.
One official from MoneyExpert.com stated: “It is not time to cancel Christmas, but for millions of us it really is time to cancel some credit cards. We can all give into temptation at Christmas and put it on plastic, but if the debt lingers from year to year you’re starting to get into trouble.”
Official predicts that close to £12 billion will be spent on credit cards in the UK during the month of December, which is a large chunk of the £53 billion total spend that is expected. Based on figures from Christmas 2006 around 9% of those putting Christmas on the card spent between 2-5 months clearing their balance, and an impressive 54% either paid off their balance in full within the interest free period or did not get into debt at all.
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