Three out of five people will cut back their Christmas spending this year due to cost-of-living crisis and some will MICROWAVE festive dinner to save on energy bills
- New survey shows three in five people will cut back on Christmas spending
- Savanta Comres said young adults are most likely to cut back on their plans
- Only three per cent of those polled said Christmas will be bigger than last year
Three in five people will cut back their Christmas spending this year due to cost-of-living concerns with some relying on a microwave meal for the big day.
The desperate measures comes as inflation hit a 40-year high in September, with prices up 10.1 per cent in a year.
Food prices drove the latest rise in living costs, along with soaring energy bills and transport costs.
A Savanta Comres survey for the BBC revealed adults with a household income under £40,000 were more likely to say their plans will be much smaller this year.
Just 3 per cent of those polled said their Christmases will be bigger than last year.
Young adults aged between 25-34 are significantly more likely to say their spending plans will be smaller. Almost three quarters plan to scale back on the festivities.
One mother from Somerset, identified as Kristie, told the BBC that last year she and her son had a proper Christmas lunch with turkey, ham and vegetables.
But this year she doesn’t plan to use her oven because her electricity bills are so high.
‘I can’t afford to put on the cooker – I’m using the microwave. So how am I going to cook Christmas dinner for me and my son?’ she asked.
‘You’re better off getting a takeaway Indian meal from Tesco and sticking that in the microwave.’ Her plans for presents are also being scaled back, due to rising living costs.
‘My son has made a pact with me that this year we’re going to get a stocking each and stocking fillers, because we can’t afford anything else,’ she said.
Three in five people will cut back their Christmas spending this year due to cost-of-living concerns with some relying on a microwave meal for the big day
People’s plans for Christmas have already been impacted for two years in a row due to the pandemic.
In December 2020, there were strict restrictions on household mixing due to a surge in coronavirus.
The following year, the emergence of the Omicron variant did not lead to restrictions being placed on hospitality, but businesses said customer confidence in eating and drinking out took a hit, with a flurry of cancellations and scaled-back celebrations in the run-up to December 25.
For many retail and hospitality firms, this is their main money-making period of the year, and they will have been hoping for a return to normality.
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