Forget Christmas, let’s book a holiday!
It’s only two months until Christmas and in every shop the shelves are packed with Christmas goodies. We asked our MumPanel what they’ll be spending their money on this Christmas and there were some surprising results.
We wanted to know if mums are feeling the financial pinch this year – 30% said they would be spending less, 58% about the same, 12% more. And even though today we’ve heard we’re finally out of recession mums are always canny shoppers – whether that’s because money is tighter because of redundancy or maternity leave or they just want to have enough left to pay for a holiday next year. A strong message from the survey was that mums value family time most, spending almost takes a back seat with many prepared to spend a little less or a little more wisely at Christmas.
So we know mums like to plan ahead (they are already thinking about next year’s summer holiday and cutting back on Xmas spending so they can afford a family break) and 10% of our mums had already bought food and drink by September. For many mums present shopping starts in January, allowing them to stagger the cost over the year. Our mums also showed us they are resourceful – hunting down deals, and using charity shops and ebay so they can still afford the gifts their children want. And lots of mums find out about these deals from other mums – money saving word of mouth. That’s worth remembering when you are planning how to communicate with mums in 2013.
We asked mums what they would be buying for their children this year and we expected the list to be full of gadgets and technology. But that isn’t the case – we found kids really want a mix of heritage and traditional toys (bikes, Lego, jigsaws) that wouldn’t be out of place on a Christmas wish list from the 1970s. We are seeing more tech led presents creeping in (especially for older children – the mums who are spending more this year tend to have older kids who want more expensive, gadget type gifts) but it does show that children still love playing and getting out and about.
MumPanel Christmas Shopping survey 2012, over 350 respondents, mums with children 0-16 years