‘Crying, panicking, and praying for a solution’: How Christmas will push millions of Britons into debt
Rising household bills, rising food costs and the financial strain of the holiday season are pushing millions of Britons to the brink this Christmas, forcing them to rack up credit card debt and resort to buy now, pay later schemes.
An estimated 5.6 million parents in the UK with dependent children will still be in debt or financially unrecoverable by the spring of next year, according to research from lender CreditSpring.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International has warned that nearly one in four people in Britain fear the costs of this year’s festive season will drive them into debt.
It’s a fight Anthony Lyman knows all too well. The 39-year-old father has experienced holidays where the heating was turned off, the lights remained dim and there wasn’t enough food to feed the whole family.
This year, he’s relieved to at least be able to cook a turkey for his kids; he once believed this would never be possible.
For him, Christmas meant tears, panic and crippling debt with no way out. For years, she sacrificed her own meals to ensure her two children had something to eat, while also trying to cut down on bills that never went down.
To talk IndependentWhile life is still difficult, she says she has a deep understanding of what many families are facing this December because she’s been there, too.
His worst moment came at Christmas 2018. He was sick and didn’t have enough money for food or even to keep the heating on. “No matter how many blankets I wore, I was still cold, I felt it in my bones, and that was my darkest year.”
This leaves countless people across the UK on the brink of poverty, struggling with the cost of living crisis and the added challenges of Christmas.
58 per cent of those celebrating Christmas are worried about how the cost of living of the crisis will affect them, their friends or family.
Many Britons will have to turn to credit this year, according to a survey by banking app thinkmoney; 25 per cent of people are expected to use a credit card to finance Christmas spending and one in seven people are expected to use buy now, pay later schemes.
Deep in debt, Mr. Lyman had no choice but to declare bankruptcy. “It was one of the biggest stresses, you were getting letters through the door, people knocking on the door, you were getting phone calls… but no one was offering you a solution at the time,” he said.
He said he initially encountered a lack of understanding from creditors who he believed were supportive but who offered him no help and threatened to take back the debt.
“The last thing I needed was people knocking on my door asking for £500 for petrol which I couldn’t provide,” he said. “[There were] Once or twice I thought, ‘Would it be better if I wasn’t around?’ “Dark nights where you think ‘
“And as Christmas approaches, there are people trying to buy Christmas gifts for their loved ones. It’s a time of year where there’s a lot of financial pressure.”
“This year, at least I can afford my turkey dinner for the kids. It’s kind of hard, I’m still going without some meals to get them to eat here, because the cost of living is definitely way above what it takes to live.”
Currently Citizens Advice helps more than 35,000 people with debt problems every month; This figure is an increase of almost 50 percent compared to 2021.
The charity’s head of policy, Anne Pardoe, said they were also seeing an increase in people’s debt to creditors, with the average person reaching out for support facing debts of around £10,000.
He said: “We see an increase in the number of people coming to us around January. We also see an increase in calls about things like energy bills over the winter because people are really worried about seeing the heating on.”
“We know people are really worried about their energy bills again this winter. We’re hearing from people sitting out in the cold because they’re afraid to turn the heating on, and we’ve spoken to people wearing gloves inside to stay warm without spending more money.
“Similarly, with water, we’re seeing people taking pretty extreme measures to ration their water use. People are really struggling, and winter can hit people really hard.”
According to research by thinkmoney, financial pressures from the holidays will likely last until 2026; Only 22 percent of shoppers expect to wrap up their Christmas spending by the end of December.
Stewart McCulloch, chief executive of debt advice charity Christians Against Poverty, said in January he had seen the crackdown affecting many people.
“As we get closer to Christmas it gets colder, people spend more on heating, it gets darker earlier, so people spend more on lighting… you get a more expensive period.
“They’re borrowing to buy food, they’re borrowing to pay rent, they’re actually borrowing daily just to get through the month.”
