Lighter load for Santa as recession bites
By MICHAEL FOX - Stuff.co.nz | Friday, 21 November 2008CHEAPER CHRISMAS: A poll of over 500 people found that almost half of us plan to spend less this Christmas and two thirds believe our current financial situation is worse or much worse than a year ago.
Kiwis are defying calls to open their wallets to help drive the economy out of recession and plan to curb their spending over Christmas, a Research New Zealand poll shows.
The poll of over 500 people found that almost half of us plan to spend less this Christmas and two thirds believe our current financial situation is worse or much worse than a year ago.
Research New Zealand Director Emanuel Kalafatelis said the poll results confirmed that high food and petrol prices, a tightening economy and falling house prices were hitting Kiwis hard.
"For the vast majority of us times are tough," he said.
"Christmas is traditionally time for a big spend-up and racking up a lot of debt to hopefully be paid off later, but if you go by these poll results it looks like the shops and holiday destinations may be a little quieter this year as people feel the pinch."
Almost three quarters of all respondents said the state of the economy was having an impact on their standard of living.
Of those, 41 percent said the value of their savings and investments had decreased and their debt had increased.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they were cutting back on essential items such as food, power and fuel while 74 percent were curbing their non-essential spending on things like entertainment.
The poll also showed Kiwis are planning to spend less on their summer holidays, though 14 percent said they planned to spend more.
However, the outlook was positive for almost half of all respondents, who said they expected their financial situation to improve over the next year.
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