One-thousand people were surveyed to find out how the cost of living crisis is affecting their plans for Christmas. The Gazette would be keen to hear how the cost of living crisis is affecting our readers. Please do get in touch with [email protected] with your thoughts and stories on how the cost of living increases is affecting you.

As you can see from our infographic, the cost of living crisis is leaving very few of us untouched.

For Christmas 2021, the average Brit spent £1,108 on Christmas festivities – for a lot of us, that’s an eye-watering amount well out of our reach in the current climate.

Our research showed that budgets are dropping and spending is going down for most Brits this yuletide: almost half of our respondents said that their overall Christmas budget is lower than it was in 2021. This is despite inflation increasing the cost of goods.

57% of our respondents find Christmas preparation stressful every year. But almost half said it is MORE stressful in 2022 than it has ever been.

The biggest stressor by far was the cost of Christmas presents, with 75% saying they were worried about affording gifts.

While the average British adult spent approximately £548 on Christmas gifts last year, our sample showed that 15% had just £100 to spend in total on gifts. A further 36% capped their total gift budget at £300. As inflation balloons, we’re under more pressure than ever to make every pound stretch a long way.

People budgeted even less for festive food and drink, with 33% budgeting only £100 and a further 50% capping their food allowance at £300.

Given that some festive food staples have risen in price by as much as 226% since last year’s dinner, it’s no surprise that the cost of Christmas dinner worried 52% of our respondents.

The average household’s energy bill has climbed to about £3000 a year. These soaringcosts are a particular worry for consumers. And it’s having a clear impact on the way we are behaving over the festive season.

A whopping 78% said they would be turning their heating down or off on Christmas day, citing rocketing bills as the reason why.

57% have chosen not to have Christmas lights on this year for fear of an astronomical electric bill. In addition, 30% say they’ll cook less than usual over the festive period to save on energy costs.

The cost of living crisis is even having an impact on the ways we socialise over Christmas. 23% stated that they’d have fewer visitors than usual over the holidays to try to keep costs down.

Sadly, 5% of our respondents are spending Christmas alone – the cost of celebrating was cited as the most common reason for this.

Spending may be dropping rapidly. But 73% thought that spending time with loved ones is the true meaning of Christmas. It makes sense to embrace this now more than ever as we tighten our belts.

Methodology: 1000 British people were surveyed via Pollfish on 18th November 2022.