This holiday season, Canadians are being more cautious about their spending despite a tax cut on a number of items, a new survey shows.
Nearly 40 per cent of Canadians said in an Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News and released Tuesday that they plan to rein in their gift buying this holiday season. This is an increase of 10 points compared to a similar survey conducted last year.
Four in 10 also plan to spend the same amount as last year (nine points less than in October 2023), while 11 percent said they will increase their spending on gifts this time, the Ipsos survey showed.
“At the moment, it seems like people are approaching the holidays quite cautiously and to the extent that people are throwing caution to the wind, it’s not to spend more, but to spend less,” said Darrell Bricker, director Ipsos global public affairs executive.
Financial pressures are weighing on most Canadians’ holiday spending budgets, with 76 per cent saying inflation and interest rates have had a “significant impact.”
Headline inflation has cooled in recent months, hitting the Bank of Canada’s 2 per cent target in October, and the interest rate has dropped to 3.25 per cent after five consecutive cuts. However, many Canadians continue to feel the pressure on their wallets.
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To help alleviate pressure on Canadians on the cost of living, the federal government has enacted a two-month “tax holiday” on several items that took effect Saturday. Bricker said even the tax break does not appear to have had the “desired effect” Ottawa sought.
“(Canadians) are budgeting more than before, they are more conscious of the money they spend and they don’t believe that even a tax break can change the situation,” he said.
Younger Canadians, ages 35 to 54, are cutting back on vacation spending the most, according to the Ipsos survey.
“What younger Canadians are telling us is that they’re not making the progress in their lives that they thought they should be making and that they can’t even participate in Christmas traditions to the extent that they would like to, which is… kind of depressing. To hear that this time of year,” Bricker said.
What are Canadians worried about this holiday season?
Nearly 60 per cent of Canadians surveyed by Ipsos said they can’t spend extra money on gifts this holiday season because they have to spend more on basic needs.
Nearly half (47 percent) said they are budgeting their finances more carefully and 30 percent said they now make less money than in previous years.
Credit card debt is also a priority for many Canadians this holiday season: 43 per cent are worried about not being able to pay off their credit card debt and more than a third (36 per cent) are worried about needing a new card of credit. , line of credit or loan to cover Christmas purchases.
The Ipsos survey showed that 45 per cent are worried about not being able to afford Christmas gifts for their family or loved ones and 41 per cent are worried about “spending Christmas spending”.
As grocery prices remain high and are expected to remain that way through the holiday season, four in 10 (39 per cent) Canadians fear they won’t be able to put food on their tables, according to a survey.
“The ironic part of this is that the government really put a lot into it not only financially, but also in terms of people’s reputation to get some relief and they just don’t feel it,” Bricker said.
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos survey conducted between December 6 and 10, 2024, commissioned by Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,001 Canadians ages 18 and older were interviewed online. Quotas and weights were used to ensure that the sample composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The accuracy of Ipsos online surveys is measured by a credibility interval. In this case, the survey is accurate to within ±3.8 percentage points, 19 out of 20 times, if all Canadians over the age of 18 had been surveyed. The credibility interval will be wider between subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to, coverage error and measurement error.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
