Christmas clubs increasing in popularity in current financial climate

A couple of decades ago Christmas clubs in the UK were extremely popular amongst consumers that wanted to ensure that they had enough put by for the Christmas period when they would have to spend a fortune on gifts and food.

However, from the early 1990s onwards the climate changed and credit became far more readily available, which resulted in the popularity of these Christmas clubs plunging, with people preferring to use their credit cards and other types of credit to fund their Christmas spending.

However, according to a recent report the popularity of Christmas clubs has been increasing again, with the ongoing recession and difficult financial climate contributing to the rising popularity of this sector.

With credit still tight many people are unable to get credit these days, and as a result many have now started turning to Christmas clubs again to ensure that they can afford to fund the cost the Christmas this year.

The Post Office Christmas Club claims that over the course of this year its customer base has grown to tens of thousands, many of whom may never had considered using a Christmas club in the past.

One official from the scheme said: ‘The scheme is still skewed towards the traditional areas of the North, Midlands, South Wales and urban Scotland. However, numbers in the South are increasing, indicating that recession is bringing in customers not typically disposed to Christmas Club schemes.’

Another official from a different Christmas club scheme said that people were planning ahead more, hence the rise in popularity of these schemes.

He said: ‘We’ve got more in our Christmas Club at this point than we have had for many years. It’s the economic climate –people are being more cautious and planning ahead.’

Tags: Credit Cards, christmas clubs, spending, christmas, north midlands, report, office