By Patrick Hind


So, you've spent most of December buying presents for every member of your seemingly ungrateful extended family, and you've managed to polish off enough Christmas food to feed a small African village. Although your stomach might be feeling a bit full, your wallet is likely to be empty, and there are still new year celebrations to come!

New year can be a pricey occasion too. Ok, so there may not be as many presents to buy, and there's usually no need to fork out for quite so much food, but the tradition of new year being an occasion for drunken revelry with friends is still likely to make it an expensive night. Many bars and clubs are well aware of young people's appetite for celebration on new year's eve, and so jack up their drinks prices and entry fees in preparation. And when you add to this a costly cab ride home (with a new year premium, of course) then new year can be a bit of a financial stretch for many.

So this might explain, then, why an increasing number of people are deciding to stay in on new year's eve, making it a cheaper alternative to going out on the town. According to new research conducted by Yorkshire Bank, for example, one in three people (32 per cent) in the UK are planning to spend new year's eve in front of the television at home, rather than go out partying, with many saying that the high costs of going out were off-putting.

But not going out doesn't necessarily mean that you can't have a party, with the survey showing that a further 21 per cent are planning to save money by holding a house party instead of paying bar prices for their drinks.

"We normally associate new year's eve with outrageous parties and excessive spending, but our research suggests this is no longer the case," explained Gary Lumby, Yorkshire Bank's head of retail.

"People this year appear to be helping to avoid the aggravation and expense and choosing to be more sociable by spending a fun, but perhaps more relaxing and cheaper time celebrating at home. So it will be more about loafing on the sofa than leaping into fountains!"

Apparently, its people in the north-east who are most likely to forego a party of any kind in favour of a night in with the telly, with 32 per cent saying that they would probably be in bed before midnight. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it's London that will see the greatest proportion of people willing to spend the money on going out, with only a quarter (25 per cent) of people looking forward to a relaxing night in.