Christmas family budgets higher than ever: Planned spending exceeds pre-pandemic levels

HOUSEHOLDS in Spain plan to spend on average 20% more on Christmas this year and eight in 10 will be shelling out the same or more than they did in 2020, according to recent figures.

Only 21% expect to spend less than they did they year before, compared with 59% who made this decision in 2020.

A typical resident or family unit will be parting with around €531 for the festive season, the Cetelem Observatory – the trading name for BNP Paribas Personal Finance - reveals in its latest report.

This represents 20% more than last year, and 11% more than in pre-Covid times.

Three in 10 expect Christmas to cost them between €400 and €1,000, compared with about a quarter who planned this level of outlay in 2020, whilst 38% intend to spend under €200, compared with 43% who set themselves this budget limit last year.

And 8% of those questioned will be parting with over €1,000 for the holidays.

A total of 23% plan to spend more on Christmas 2021 than they did for 2020 – only 8% said a year ago they would be spending more on the festive season than they had in 2019.

Surveys using the same methodology found that the number expecting to put more money towards the forthcoming Christmas than they had in the preceding year was 20% in pre-pandemic times, meaning budgets have increased despite Covid.

The Cetelem Observatory found that 56% plan to spend the same on Christmas 2021 as they did on Christmas 2020, whilst a year ago, only a third expected to shell out the same amount as they had for Christmas 2019.

Last year's respondents who intended to reduce their Christmas budget from 2019 totalled 59%, prior to the pandemic, around 28% said their 2019 festive pot was smaller than that of 2018.

Yet for Christmas 2021, only 21% have planned to cut their spending on the festive period – fewer than before Covid.

Overall, the most frequent response displayed an intention to put aside the same amount of cash for Christmas 2021 as for Christmas 2020, although among those who did not fall into this category, the number planning to spend more was higher this year and the total budgeting less was lower.

Of those who say their Christmas spending in 2021 will be lower than that of 2020, between seven in 10 and three-quarters admitted the effects of the pandemic on their household finances was the main reason.

But this is still a vast improvement on a year ago – ahead of Christmas 2020, the Cetelem Observatory found that 94% of those households which had tightened their festive belts had decided to do so because of the Covid crisis making their financial situation worse.