When it comes to festive spending, move over Father Christmas, it is Britain’s grandparents who are splashing out on presents and entertaining, spending an average of almost £600 each on Christmas every year.
When it comes to festive spending, move over Father Christmas, it is Britain’s grandparents who are splashing out on presents and entertaining, spending an average of almost Ł600 each on Christmas every year.
Almost six and a half million grandparents will be hosting Christmas lunch and more for their family and friends this December, according to Norwich Union*.
Generous grandparents are digging deep into their pockets this Christmas with grandchildren being the main benefactors, and it seems the more grandchildren there are, the merrier. Those with eight grandchildren spend Ł65 a head on the latest must-have toys and games at Christmas, as well as going well above the average overall spend, splurging an average total of just under Ł720 treating friends and family to all the trimmings.
And it’s not just at Christmas that grandparents spoil their grandchildren: four out of 10 (39%) admit to spoiling them all year round. On average they spend Ł200 on each one over the course of the year. One in 10 (9%) also regularly send their grandchildren money throughout the year. But it’s the middle generation who lose out with 41% of grandparents admitting spending more on their grandchildren than on their children.
Daren Carter, sales and marketing director at Norwich Union Personal Finance, said: “They say that Christmas is a time for giving and our grandparents seem to have embraced that sentiment. The festive season is a great time to get family and friends together and our research shows that it is the older generation who are maintaining this tradition with less than a quarter (24%) being entertained by other people over the Christmas period.”
However, all this generosity does come at a cost. A third of grandparents (34%) confess to buying things for their grandchildren even when they can’t afford to do so. Those grandparents who do this more often are spending more than the average on their grandkids at Christmas - Ł72 per head compared to Ł58. Considering that the average weekly income of almost a third (31%) of grandparents is less than Ł300 a week per household, it may be that this kindness isn’t sustainable.
Daren Carter added: “Despite the older generation admitting they splash out on their grandchildren it isn’t all frittered away on expensive gifts. Over one in eight (13%) finance savvy grandparents prefer to help towards long-term investment for their grandchildren and 600,000 (5%) help pay for their education.”
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Notes to editors:
*Source: Research conducted by YouGov, 29 November – 1 December 2005 with a sample size of 932 UK grandparents.
Norwich Union is the market leading equity release provider with a market share of 34% (source Safe Home Income Plans Q3 2005). Full written terms and conditions are available on request. Norwich Union is the UK's largest insurer. It is the UK's largest provider of life, pensions and investment products and one of the leading Financial Advisers (FA) providers. FAs provide around 75% of the company's long-term savings business in the UK.
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