Have a Great Christmas for free!
| Author: Stooz | Created: 20/12/2005 |
While Christmas can be a great fun time, it is also an expensive time of year as we buy gifts for our friends and families, stock up with food and drink, socialise or buy a new outfit for the office Christmas party. So how would you like to have a great Christmas this year without it costing you a penny? Yes, that is what we said, without costing you a penny! If that interests you, then read on and learn a little more about our Christmas spending patterns and how stoozing can give you it all for free.
Credit at Christmas
Industry research shows that 25% of the UK population will be funding last Christmas by increasing
their borrowing on credit cards and loans. This lead to an expected £11bn of credit card spending
in December 2005. When used carefully, credit cards
can be great way of providing the necessary
cash flow to help us meet our day-to-day financial commitments and to help us deal with peak
spending times like Christmas. When used unwisely, credit cards can be an expensive way to borrow
money. Sadly, there will be many Christmas shoppers opening up next month's credit card bills with
a sense of trepidation.
However, there is a group of people for whom the credit card bill holds no fear. The 'stoozers' of this world have turned credit cards on their head by finding a way to make money from them. They use a technique called stoozing where they treat 0% introductory rates on credit cards as interest free loans. The money that the stoozer borrows from the credit card issuer is invested in high interest savings accounts and the interest gained becomes the stoozer's profit. At the end of the introductory period, the free loan is simply paid back to the credit card company or moved to another credit card... and the stoozer pockets all the interest! In the following paragraphs we tell you what Christmas costs and how you can cover these costs by stoozing.
How much does Christmas really cost me?
Only you can work out precisely what you spend on Christmas, but we can tell you what Mr or Ms Average spends. According to research by consultancy group, Deloitte, we are each expected to spend approximately £310 on gifts for other people in 2005. That sounds like a lot of money already, but don't forget to include festive food & drink and the additional socialising that most of us do at this time of year. These will add approximately £287 to our Christmas spending bill. In round figures, therefore, we can estimate that Christmas 2005 cost us £600 each or £1200 per couple. Is that more or less than you thought? If you keep track of your own spending, take a bit of time out after the New Year parties and work out what your own spending was this Christmas. It may not cure your hangover, but it might sober you up!
Can I really earn enough 'free' money to pay for next Christmas?
If you have a good credit record (check yours with a
free Experian credit report
from experian) and a reasonable income, then you could probably earn enough
money to pay for Christmas. Let's get down to some numbers and talk about Mr or Ms Average
again. What do they earn from stoozing? At www.stoozing.com,
our research has indicated that the
average stoozer on our website has £29,000 borrowed from credit cards on an interest free basis.
In a typical high interest savings account, that would earn the stoozer £1,377 per annum before
tax which is £1,102 after the deduction of basic rate tax. Given that the average cost of Christmas
per person is about £600, stoozing can cover this cost with money left over which can either be
spent in the Winter Sales or saved for a rainy day!
How do I find out more?
If you would like to find out how to put stoozing into practice, read our Guide to stoozing. Please ensure that you also read our risks section because not everyone has the right attention to detail to be a successful stoozer.
Talk about this article or anything else in our lively free forums.