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Last-minute shopping costs us millions
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Around £2.1bn of presents bought during the week before Christmas will be paid for with credit cards, according to Sainsbury’s Bank.
Some 1.4 million people who leave their shopping until the last minute intend to spend more than £1,000 during that period, with a further 4.4 million planning on splashing between £501 and £1,000.
Men intend to spend £325.48 on average during the last week before Christmas, with women planning to spend £231.63. If each overspends by the 39% Egg estimates, these amounts will be closer to £450 for men and £320 for women.
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For those buying these presents with a credit card, these sizeable sums may be difficult to pay off until well into 2008. Of those people planning on doing some last-minute Christmas spending, only 61% expect to clear it by the end of January.
Alison Wright, chief marketing officer at Egg says: “Each year we get 12 months' advance warning that Christmas is coming, but we still often resort to last-minute panic buying.
“We need to try to find ways to drive down the overall cost of Christmas – one way seems to be by avoiding those last-minute shopping sprees, when lack of choice and panic buying are rife.”
The streets to avoid in the week before Christmas are in London, where 16% of shoppers need to panic-buy presents, closely followed by the North West (14%).
And while 10% of Brits can be described as a “really late shopper”, it appears women are as guilty of leaving their Christmas shopping until the last minute as men are.
