Park Christmas Savings Club - is it just a big rip-off?

But they are not a bank or building society, they are a voucher savings scheme. Just use it or don't it's as simple as that.

Check if your employer has a workplace savings scheme.

Ours does and I use it to save for Christmas as the money comes directly off my salary and straight into the savings account so I never get to see it in the first place, it’s great.

I used to do these years ago when money was tight. It was grand, I couldn't dip in to it as I could with a savings account, and come Christmas I'd get about £500. I used to save with a lady at work, I'd give her the cash on payday.
I'm not in that tight financial position any more, but when I was they were a god send.

I love park, have done it for years. I get Amazon and sainsburys vouchers mostly. I love the Christmas food shop, the only one of the year we do in sainsburys rather than lidl/Aldi and buy whatever we want.

Yes, I could save it elsewhere for a couple of quid interest but I like the vouchers

Just save it yourself and get the interest. You have the flexibility of access to it if you really needed it and you can spend it exactly how you want.

If you really can't trust yourself with having access then maybe.

A bank regular savings account is better in my opinion.

Some banks used to offer a service whereby your debit card purchases would be rounded up to the nearest £1 and the difference would be transferred to a savings account - a way of saving without really noticing,

I’d rather use the top up balance option on Amazon. It he I can put money in and use it when I want/need something.

Good on you for treating yourself rather than spending it all on other folk at Christmas.

I use park every year not for xmass as i dont do xmass at all but i save for a me spend once a year.
I save for the cards i can use them online and in store.
I spend every penny on my self from spa days to afternoon teas.
Last year i got a whole new wardrobe of clothes and a new chair for my front room a spa day I paid for 2 of them.
Also covered my food shopping for 2 months.
Ive even paid the odd bill online.
This year im saving for a holiday getaway and a chest freezer and more spa days.

How is it?

What exactly is it costing them, apart from maybe a few quid in interest, and it really would be just a few quid.

They get back what they put in, in a way that they can use for its intended purpose, and they are not charged for it. The company makes it money by (presumably) investing the money and doing deals for the vouchers with the companies that provide them.

No one is ripping anyone off.

Interest rates are so pathetic if you saved £20 a month you are not making any profit from interest maybe few pence a year? So a savings account where you could be tempted spend is not worth the risk.

The same year the shitty ha,per company went bust Fortnam and Mason delivered a few of their their hampers slightly late, guess which made the front pages

The Farepak scandal was all over the papers at the time - rightly so. Legislation was crafted specifically on the back of it.

Our whole society is set up to benefit rich people, so singling out Park isn't really fair. Look at more fundamental things, such as the energy prices charged to people who have pay-as-you-go meters. The poor pay for the rich in many ways.

Park is simply meeting a need in the market. At least people using Park won't be going to payday lenders or, worse, loan sharks.

You're not the target market OP, so no need for it to work for you or for you to be faux confused or 'understand'.

It's a very helpful scheme for people who need to save specifically towards increased spending at xmas, in a way that they cannot access the money by dipping into it through the year.

Yes, they are missing out on interest, but lets be honest interest rates have been pathetic until last year. The benefit is the fact the money is inaccessible until the end of the scheme.

You'll be amazed to find out some workplaces offer similar xmas savings clubs, where a % of salary is deducted and kept back by the company and returned as a lump sum in November. Although this is becoming less common.

It's an exploitative poverty trap for people who struggle to manage their money.

This a decent alternative

It's exploitation of people with poor credit, basically. That fucking hamper company was even worse! But they went bust, leaving everyone who had saved all year out of pocket. If they were targeting rich people they would not get away with it, but they are not. The same year the shitty ha,per company went bust Fortnam and Mason delivered a few of their their hampers slightly late, guess which made the front pages. Credit unions are the best way to save for Xmas in this way, they often have dedicated accounts.

Another point about the vouchers is that they can only be spent at larger retailers - so once they arrive, the chances are they will be used for the intended Christmas purpose. They won't be, e.g. cadged by one's deadbeat partner to buy cider and fags down the local offie.

I have used it and also had amazon vouchers, which where I get most of my gifts from anyway and also, because two of the kids are at uni they prefer amazon vouchers rather than having to carry gifts back to uni.

It costs nothing, removes the temptation to "borrow" some out of savings on a tight month and the funds are protected since the Farepak collapse.

I dont see a downside personally.

What would be the point in them taking your money and handing you it back, beneficial to you but how is that business? They need to make their cut, by handing you vouchers that they will make their bit from, but the customer is also happy as they have saved structured for a decent Christmas. It's not a rip off to the customer at all, the customer pays £1000 and receives £1000. The shops pay Park for the privilege of that customer now coming to that shop because they have vouchers. It's called business.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/christmas-savings-clubs/

I used to buy vouchers with them and it really helped at Christmas but with our local high street being crap they became really difficult to use so I stopped.
The hampers are a massive rip off

The point is that whatever else goes on, what you save is in that scheme and you can't just dip in to it (as you could regular savings) if something else comes up during the year.

And has its own discipline, so you do put something aside throughout the year, rather than thinking that you could miss now and add extra later.

It's not necessarily the best way to save, but if either of those two aspects help you (need the external structure because you don't want to rely on internal motivation), it can be a worthwhile approach