Online Shopping See’s Busiest Day
The run up to Christmas is traditionally an extremely expensive time for the vast majority of the population in the UK, as they trawl the shops and high streets looking for the perfect Christmas gifts for their loved ones……or even their relatives!!
Many individuals are likely to take out an unsecured personal loan in order to help them cover the cost of Christmas shopping, whilst others will give their credit cards and store cards a serious financial battering. Although the high street shops are still an extremely popular method of shopping, there has been a growing trend, over the past couple of years for online shopping and yesterday (Monday 7th) saw the record amount of sales for online shopping.
It was predicted that during yesterday alone, individuals in the UK would spend somewhere in the region of £350 million through online shopping. This type of shopping, of course leads to people running up large credit card bills, without many people thinking about the consequences of taking on the additional debt and a common recurrence in January every year is a large increase in the number of people applying for a debt consolidation loan, in order to help them pay off their Christmas overspending.
The Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) has warned individuals against the use of credit cards and taking out personal loans to pay for Christmas, advising them instead to budget accordingly and simply spend less. Malcolm Hurlston of the CCCS said “Every year, demand for our helpline increases in January and February as Christmas spending proves to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Making a budget for Christmas is good financial sense, especially if money is tight. Make sure you’re not haunted by the ghost of Christmas credit.”
