subject: Credit cards 'may be a good option for Christmas' [print this page] Credit cards 'may be a good option for Christmas'
An expert has spoken about festive credit cards.
Using a credit card in order to finance expenditure over the festive period may be a good option - as long as people are careful not to go overboard on their spending.
That is according to a spokeswoman for online resource Moneyfacts, who said that credit cards may be a better way to fund the added costs most families experience over the duration of Christmas as opposed to other avenues such as savings accounts or current accounts.
However, in order for this to be true, each individual must monitor how much they are borrowing, as a failure to do so may lead to financial problems later in the year when the debt needs to be repaid.
In order to avoid any excessive charges for spending cash on a credit card, the specialist urged people to take out a product that has a zero per cent interest rate and then pay it off as soon as possible.
Should the individual not take this advice, they may find Christmas to be "very expensive" as they will end up "paying quite a lot of money in interest", she continued.
The expert maintained that funding large purchases via a credit card does have several clear advantages, such as the inclusion of the safety net of the Consumer Protection Act on goods worth more than 100.
However, she warned that these benefits do not serve to cancel out the potential pitfalls of a credit card, meaning that the packages should only be used to fund Christmas as a last resort.
"If you have got other methods or ways of doing it then it's probably more advisable to go for those," the professional urged.
This follows on from research conducted by the Co-operative Electrical last week (October 26th), which found that some 33 per cent of people under their mid-30s feel that they will have to borrow to afford the festive period this year.
