A fifth of all Britons use credit for Christmas costs

All the pressure to give everyone a Christmas they will remember is driving UK consumers headlong into credit card debt.

Many British people will be turning to their credit cards for all their festive needs from gifts to food/drink and outfits. This fact has emerged from the latest Maritz Research poll into consumer spending.

The poll reveals that one in five (20%) Britons have admitted that all their spending for Christmas this year will be on their credit cards. More than one in ten (14%) believe in “buy now, pay later” and 61% confirmed that whenever they have been offered credit cards or increases to their limits, at no stage have they been asked about their ability to pay.

This current trend of overspending is driven further by companies offering higher credit limits and unsolicited new cards. Of those polled 62% said they’d been offered a pre-approved credit card before Christmas and a third told of the incentives they had been offered if they were to spend on credit. Out of the 52% who had been offered an increase in their credit limit, almost a quarter (24%) took up this offer.

The Director of this Research warns consumers to be very careful in their spending habits. It is very easy nowadays to overspend, but bills will come in eventually and if you are not in a position to clear them off in the foreseeable future, it could become a VERY costly Christmas indeed, since interest payments will continue to accrue on top of original purchase prices.