That sounds pretty impressive, until you realise that around 1 in 5 actually started shopping seriously 2 months earlier in September. ![]() 1 in 3 of us has started stocking up by November, for instance. Despite the December rush, we're actually kicking off our Christmas shopping sprees earlier each year.Average spends vary up and down the country, but household spending tends to rocket up by about 29% in December as families rush into a festive financial frenzy at the shops.So, what does all of this add up to? Here's a quick run-down of what a typical British Christmas is looking like in financial terms: Read our guide: Save money on home repairs Chances are, this comes down to people putting off all those little DIY jobs around the house until after the Christmas decorations come down. For instance, December tends to see a pretty sharp drop (just over 20%) in things like paint and hardware. There's other stuff that goes down at the same time, though. Computer and phone sales jump up by over 60%, while the amount we're blowing on drinks (alcoholic or not) and tobacco rises by 38%. UK spending on books, music and video recording equipment basically doubles in December. That's still a lot of money to lay down, obviously, but it should give you an idea of the ranges we're dealing with.Īs for where all that cash is going-again, the Bank of England's taken a close interest in this. In London, for instance, the typical Christmas spend was a whopping £1,746 per person in 2021! At the other end of the scale, people in the North East were spending around £994 each on average that year. Depending on where you live in the UK, your likely costs could vary up or down a fair bit. ![]() Obviously, averages like that doesn't paint the whole picture. According to statistics from the Bank of England (which likes to keep a close eye on things like this), that figure snowballs up by another £740 in the month of December-close to a third higher. So who's spending all this cash, and what are they getting for their money?Īveraging it all out, a typical British household will splash out something like £2,500 per month. ![]() Given the typical 2022 family income after tax of £1,926, that means we'll be blowing over half what we're earning during the festive season on our Christmas shopping alone! All told, taking account for inflation, the country as a whole's probably looking at a total Christmas shopping bill of close to £7 billion for December 2022 alone, with many of us already months into our gift-buying by then. Price comparison site reckons that the average cost of Christmas is set to hit £1,023 per household this year. With Christmas traditionally being a time when we all splash out a lot more, it makes good sense to start spreading those costs out as much as we can. Essentially, inflation means the pound in your pocket is dropping in value, and when the rate's high then everyday costs get harder to meet. That's a big leap up from the 7.8% estimate it gave out just a few months earlier. To slap some hard numbers on this, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced it was expecting UK inflation to average out at 10.5% in 2022.
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