Women are planning to spend more on Christmas shopping this year, but they’re less likely to put it on credit cards.
According to new research exclusively obtained by Financy HQ, women shoppers are intending to spend $4.7 billion nationally on Christmas presents this year, compared with $4.1 billion for men.
This is in line with broader consumer research that shows women make the bulk of consumer purchases.
Of the figures provided by peer-to-peer lender SocietyOne an estimated 46 per cent of a woman’s Christmas expenditure is expected to end up on a credit or store card, compared to 58 per cent of the purchases made by men.
Australian shoppers are intending to spend $8.8 billion on Christmas presents this year, with $4.6 billion on their credit cards.
This equates to about $191 million in needless credit card interest this year.
Female Christmas shoppers are expected to spend an average of $529 on Christmas compared to men who are expected to spend $489 – with $244 of that on credit cards, says SocietyOne’s survey of about 1000 people across the country.
Greg Symons, SocietyOne Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer says women generally have higher credit scores which can indicate that they’re more conservative with their spending than men when it comes to using credit.
Rather than using credit cards, companies like SocietyOne, are using the Christmas spending spree to suggest that people consider taking out a personal loan because of the lower interest rates.
The difference in the level of interest charged between a credit card and a personal loan can be as much as 10 per cent, says Mr Symons.
Indeed if you are going to use a credit card, it might even be prudent to make use of those offering zero per cent for a honeymoon period this Christmas. But beware – a honeymoon period does run out eventually before the rates jump up!
“It is easy to use a credit card, but it’s also so easy to not pay it off.
“You can potentially get a loan at a cheaper rate, often 4 per cent cheaper than the banks as well, than using a credit card,” says Mr Symons.
Founder of personal budgeting service sortmymoney.com.au David Rankin says when it comes to Christmas spending, just about anything is okay as long as you’ve allowed for it in your budget.
“Rather than muddle along and spending randomly on things, plan your spending and set an allowance as this takes the stress out of purchases and keeps the joy there.
It’s also important to build into your budget a frequency and not just allow for the number amount. So if you can build in the correct time frames in which you are planning to spend, that will help you with plan cash flow.”
