January could prove to be a good time to shop around for new loans and other financial products as people look to repay Christmas debts.
Donald MacLeod from Sainsbury's Bank said that a good new year's resolution could be to keep an eye on financial publications to spot good deals.
"A lot of the papers will have financial 'health checks' with checklists - have a look at them and look at the credit cards with zero per cent balance transfers and there'll be loans with great rates," he said.
According to figures from Sainsbury's, £11.8 billion will be spent on shopping in the last week before Christmas, £2.1 billion of which will go on credit cards.
Just 61 per cent of last-minute spenders, however, think they will clear balances by the end of January, meaning that new loans or consolidation products could be in order.
"So there's the time to review your finances and take advantage of what I think will be quite a lot of decent offers around in January," Mr MacLeod said.
