Three in ten Scots pay for Christmas from savings

More than three in ten Scots (36%) will pay for Christmas from savings with less than one in ten (7.45%) using their credit card to fund their festivities according to research for credit report provider MyCallcredit.

A higher than average number of Scots (7.9% against 5.4%) said they would be spending £1,000 or more on Christmas but almost six out of ten Scots (57.4%) still expect to spend less than £500 on Christmas this year, the same as the UK average.

And Scottish men and women who are set to use their plastic this Christmas are all confident their borrowing will be repaid within three months compared to just 67 per cent nationally.

Consumer affairs director Mel Mitchley says:

"Christmas is often a time when people can feel pressure to spend more than they can afford but our research shows Scots deserve their reputation of being canny, the vast majority will not borrow money to pay for Christmas and those that do know exactly when it's going to be paid off.'

Key Findings

Southerners were more likely to use credit than any other region of the UK with 12.9 per cent saying some of their Christmas spending would be on credit.
East Anglians were the least likely to pay for Christmas using credit 4.3 per cent against a national average of 8 per cent.
4.6 per cent of Scots admitted they didn't know how they were going to pay for Christmas compared to 2.4 per cent nationally.
People in Lancashire were most likely to pay for Christmas from savings (44.1%) while people in the South were least likely to use savings to cover festive costs (23.5%). Nationally 35.6 per cent of people said savings would pay for Christmas.

Editors Notes

The research was carried out by NEMS market research among 1000 adults for MyCallcredit between 28 October and 2 November 2005.