More people chose to pay using credit cards over Christmas 2009 compared to the previous year, according to research by Barclaycard.
Between December 19th and 31st, payments were up by 2.4 per cent on the year before, working out to a total of £4,085 million, compared to £3,989 million spent in 2008.
On December 23rd alone, £497 million was spent by consumers out for last-minute Christmas gifts.
As bargain hunters headed out into the sales, £376 million was spent using plastic on December 29th.
Marc Pettican, head of sales at Barclaycard Global Payment Acceptance, said: “We’ve also seen a stronger post-Christmas performance as shoppers take advantage of the sales discounts and consider the effects of the imminent VAT increase”.
In the run up to the festive period, supermarket spending increased the most as shoppers got their Christmas food in, rising by 15.2 per cent, with service station transactions up by 24.9 per cent.
I had no idea how much I had spent over the Xmas period.
Thanks to Your Debts Cleared for the advice that will get me back on top of my finances
As I said on a previous post, Xmas turned out to be more expensive than I thought.
Have now got a debt management plan set up with your debts cleared. I only need to stay on this plan for about 6 months as I know I am due a payrise about then. I expecty this plan to help me through while I am struggling, I know it is not a long term solution but atleast it saves me money while I am struggling with all my payments