Hungarians plan to spend an average of HUF 100,000 on Christmas holiday expenses this year, of which HUF 47,500 are intended for gifts, according to the latest fourth-quarter research by Cofidis Hitelmonitor.
According to data sent to MTI, compared to last year’s Christmas, Hungarians would cut back on their spending, 35 percent of them would like to spend less money on the holiday this year. 18 percent of the adult population will not spend at all on Christmas.
20 percent of Hungarians live comfortably on their income, while four-fifths have insufficient family funds. This deficit means about HUF 200,000 per month for the majority, which is the extra amount needed for a comfortable life. Due to the rise in food prices, since July, respondents have spent an average of HUF 30,000 more on kitchen bills, and they expect further increases in prices in the coming months. They currently spend an average of HUF 142,000 on food per month – they wrote.
Although according to the Cofidis Credit Monitor research, despite the more difficult financial conditions, the proportion of those who plan to take out a loan to cover Christmas expenses has not increased, balancing income and expenses is the fourth most popular loan goal for personal loans.
According to the research, 11 percent of Hungarians plan to take out a loan in the next year. The most popular type of loan is a personal loan, and the average loan amount is HUF 1.2 million.
Two-thirds of Hungarians will put up a Christmas tree again this year. Where there is wood, more than half of the homes are decorated with artificial pine. 30 percent of Hungarians buy cut pine, and 10 percent choose the ground ball version. Most people spend around HUF 10,000 on the pine tree, the festive decoration is secondary: 73 percent of Hungarians do not spend on it at all this year.
The number of people buying gifts decreased from 78 percent in 2019 to 58 percent. Those who want to surprise their family and friends would have an average budget of HUF 47,500, while in 2021 this amount was HUF 35,800.
Thrift appears on the menu, according to the research: 46 percent of Hungarians want to make family favorites on the Christmas table using the cheapest possible ingredients. However, this does not necessarily mean that they would bake and cook something different than in previous years, a third of them do not change the usual, well-proven holiday menu: fish still leads the list, it is on the table in every second family. Second place on the list of Christmas favorites went to pork, followed by walnuts and poppies.
The Cofidis Credit Monitor research has been carried out by NRC Marketingkutató és Tanácsadó Kft. since 2011, with online data collection on a sample of 500 people four times a year. The data are representative of the Hungarian Internet-using population aged 18-69.
