Shoppers approach Black Friday and Christmas spending with heavy debt burden

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Millions of Australians are set to spend record amounts over Black Friday and Christmas. The shopping sprees will come with the highest debt burden since 2021. Financial counsellors warn that holiday promotions create social pressure, leading many to overspend.

Transcript

00:00More shoppers are splurging heading into Christmas.

00:06To be honest, are you going to splurge?

00:08I might.

00:10Do you have a budget?

00:12No.

00:14There's no point, because if I did, I'd just blow it.

00:18What we've actually seen is in the last couple of months,

00:20the level of balances that are accruing interest,

00:22that people have been charging interest on,

00:24has actually increased in the last couple of months,

00:26for the first time in quite a while.

00:28Australians had $18.4 billion of debt

00:31that was now starting to accrue interest on their card,

00:35a four-year high,

00:36while applications for Buy Now, Pay Later credit services

00:40surged 43% over the year to September.

00:44What happens is that people try and correct the situation themselves

00:50by getting more debt,

00:52and then people are needing to get even more debt

00:56to service repaying the debt they already have.

00:59Economists say this debt spiral usually rears its ugly head in February,

01:05when shoppers are forced to foot the bill for a Christmas spending splurge

01:08and inevitably cop a few extra expenses.

01:11The concern is that households are heading into this danger zone

01:15with more debt than usual.

01:17It's really ticked up, and that's before the spending spree.

01:22So while we've seen a lot of confidence about the outlook,

01:26from an economic fundamentals perspective,

01:28there's some worrying signs.

01:29The Reserve Bank will be watching consumer spending too,

01:32as the debt binge also puts pressure on inflation.

01:36dysproria.

01:37ありますね。

01:38.

01:39兼職.

01:41.

01:42.

01:43.

01:45.

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