Buy Now, Worry Later: An exploratory study into spending, borrowing, and debt at Christmas

The research described in this report presents findings from the initial phase of the first study being conducted as part of the Understanding Household Financial Decision Making project by the Centre for Decision Research (CDR) at Leeds University Business School.

A key goal of the Understanding Household Financial Decision Making project is to attempt to further understand how psychological characteristics may provide insight into how and why people behave in the way they do with respect to money. The first study in this project concerns peoples’ spending behaviour at Christmas, and particularly the extent to which peoples’ emotional experiences at this time might influence spending behaviours, given the emotional and financial significance of this time of year for many. The current study is primarily interested in factors influencing financial decision making in people from lower income backgrounds, as this demographic is at particular risk of financial difficulty at Christmas time. The study will take place in three phases: two prior to Christmas and one subsequent. The research contained in this report describes the first phase of the study, and involved a series of 12 interviews conducted in September 2013 with interviewees recruited from low income, socially deprived communities in South and East Leeds. Interviews aimed to explore the depths of peoples’ opinions and knowledge about thoughts, feelings, and actions that they believe to be widely associated with Christmas.