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growing household BillRising food costs and the financial stress of the holiday season are pushing millions of Britons to the brink ChristmasDue to which they were forced to accumulate credit card debt and resort to schemes like buy now, pay later.
Research from lender CreditSpring has revealed that an estimated 5.6 million parents of dependent children in the UK will still be in debt or not have recovered financially by Christmas by spring next year.
During this time, Amnesty International Nearly one in four people in the U.S. have been warned Britain They fear that the cost of this year’s festive season will push them into debt.
It’s a struggle Anthony Lyman knows all too well. The 39-year-old father has lived through life during the holidays, where the heating was turned off, the lights were dark, and there wasn’t enough food to feed the entire family.
This year, he is relieved that at least he will be able to cook a turkey for his children, which he believed would never be possible.
For them, Christmas means tears, anxiety and a burden of debt from which there seems to be no way out. For years, he sacrificed his own food to make sure his two children had something to eat, all while trying to cut bills that never seemed to go down.
talking to IndependentHe says that although life is still difficult, he deeply understands what so many families are facing this December, because he has been there himself.
His worst moment came during Christmas 2018. He was sick and didn’t have enough money for food or even to keep the heating on. “As much as I covered myself with extra blankets, I still felt the cold, I felt it in my bones, and that was my darkest year.”
This is a situation facing countless people across the UK, who are on the brink of poverty and struggling with the cost of living and the added stress of Christmas.
Of those who celebrate Christmas, 58 per cent are worried about how the cost of living crisis will affect them, their friends or family.
Many Britons will have to turn to debt this year, with 25 per cent expected to use credit cards to help with Christmas expenses and one in seven expected to use buy now, pay later schemes, according to a survey by banking app ThinkMoney.
Deep in debt, Mr. Lyman had no choice but to declare bankruptcy. “It was one of the biggest stresses, you got letters at the door, people knocking at the door, you got phone calls…but at that time nobody was giving you solutions,” he said.
He said he faced a lack of understanding from creditors, whom he initially considered supportive, but who provided him no help and threatened to recover the debt.
He said, “The last thing I needed was people knocking on my door asking for £500 I couldn’t provide for gas.” “(There were) once or twice dark nights when you thought, ‘Would it be better if I wasn’t around?'”
“Even before Christmas, you’ll have people who are trying to buy Christmas gifts for their loved ones. It’s that time of year when there’s a lot of financial pressure.
“This year I can at least afford my turkey dinner for the kids. It’s a stretch, I’m still going without certain foods to make sure they get food here, because the cost of living is definitely above what we’re getting to live.”
Right now, Citizens Advice is helping more than 35,000 people struggling with debt every month, an increase of almost 50 per cent from 2021.
Anne Pardo, the charity’s head of policy, said she had also looked at how much people owed creditors, with the average person reaching out for help facing debts of around £10,000.
She said: “We see an increase in the number of people coming to us around January. We also see an increase in calls around things like energy bills during the winter, as people are really concerned about looking at the heating.
“We know people are really concerned about their energy bills again this winter. We’ve heard from people who are sitting in the cold because they’re too afraid to put the heating on, and we’ve spoken to people who are wearing gloves inside to try to stay warm without spending more money.
“Similarly, with water, we see people taking quite extreme measures to limit their water use. People are really struggling, and winter can hit people very hard.”
According to research from ThinkMoney, financial pressure during the holidays is likely to persist through 2026, with only 22 percent of shoppers expecting to complete their Christmas spending by the end of December.
Stewart McCulloch, chief executive of Christians Against Poverty, a charity that helps people in poverty and provides debt advice, said he thought many people felt pressured in January.
“Before Christmas, it gets colder, people are spending more on heating, it gets darker earlier, so people are spending more on lighting… You have a more expensive period.
“They’re borrowing to buy food, they’re borrowing to pay rent, they’re essentially borrowing on a day-to-day basis to get through the month.”