A NATIONAL voucher company has revealed parents spend more than £200 on each child for Christmas.

The survey, released by UK savings company, VoucherCodes.co.uk, shows that across the country, money spent on children’s presents has increased by £2.68 billion in a generation.

Parents in Brighton will spend £219.80 per child on presents this Christmas, according to the survey.

Despite the high figure parents are willing to spend on their children, 56 per cent of parents in Brighton believe that their children ask for more presents than they did at their age, according to VoucherCodes.

The research does take in to account how the cost of Christmas has increased for the average modern family as a result of meeting the demands of younger generations.

The demand is in fact so high that a fifth of parents in Brighton spend more than £400 on Christmas presents per child, compared to just three per cent a generation ago, and the research claims these figures highlight the pressures that families are under to provide a “special” Christmas for their children.

Three out of five parents under the age of 35 admit that they are saving money for Christmas by mid-November according to the recent statistics compared to a third of parents a decade ago.

But the statistics have also shown that despite parents spending so much money, over one third of people in Brighton admit that they buy Christmas gifts without knowing if their children actually want them, and almost 50 per cent of Brighton Christmas shoppers admit that they have been guilty of buying rubbish presents because they left it too late to go shopping.

Anita Naik, Lifestyle Editor at VoucherCodes.co.uk, said: “It is heart-warming that the spirit of goodwill is still alive and well and Brits intend to be so generous this Christmas. The massive increase in spending on Christmas presents in a single generation does however place people, particularly young families, under financial pressure.

We would encourage people to shop around for the best deal before buying the “must have” gift they’re after.