One in ten Britons have put Christmas on plastic, according to research published yesterday.

The survey, which comes as millions of shoppers hit the sales, showed that 6 per cent of people are still paying off debts caused by spending on last year’s presents.

About 8 per cent admitted that they had gone into the red this Christmas, with 13 per cent saying that they did not think they would have enough money left over to meet household bills for the rest of the month.

The findings come after official figures published last week showed that households spent much of 2009 curbing their spending and repaying debt in response to the recession. The savings ratio, the gap between household income and spending, which is often used to repay debts or add to savings, soared to 8.6 per cent between July and September, its highest level since 1998.

However, more evidence emerged yesterday that families have abandoned their saving habit as the sales season begins. Shopping centres said that they expected yesterday to be their busiest day of the year after footfall figures were counted.

Andrew Parkinson, general manager at Bluewater in Kent, whose stores ordered 15 per cent more stock in anticipation of a busier sale period than last year, said: “We are anticipating that ‘Mega Monday’ will be our busiest day of the year. For many, it is also about buying ‘big ticket’ items before the impending VAT increase.”

Bluewater said that the most popular purchases so far had been feather pillows, luxury white towels, glass, branded fashions, LCD televisions and furniture.

Shoppers spent an estimated £132 million online on Christmas Day, with the number of shoppers out on Boxing Day rising by 18.5 per cent year on year, according to Experian, the consumer researcher.

The rush for bargains in the sales prompted shopping centres yesterday to call for longer Sunday opening hours to cater for demand on Boxing Day next year. Thousands of shoppers were ejected from shops on Sunday because the law allows only six hours of trading. Gordon McKinnon, operations director of the Trafford Centre in Manchester, said: “Next year Boxing Day falls on a Sunday. It is going to be an absolute nightmare unless something is done.

“[On Sunday] we had 20,000 people in the centre before the shops were open and at 6pm we had to close with 30,000 still inside. Turning people away in the current economic climate is just lunacy.”

R3, the Association of Business Recovery Professionals, has predicted that about 150,000 people would become insolvent in 2010. It said that it usually reports a rise in insolvencies at the beginning of the year as a result of overspending during the festive period.

Peter Sargent, president of the insolvency trade body, said: “Christmas can be a treacherous time for people who are struggling already to make ends meet. While many people have been careful in their spending throughout the year, worrying numbers are set to break these good habits resulting in a financial nightmare for the new year.”

Fraudsters’ shopping list

• Figures published yesterday indicated that shoppers who were buying goods online were at greater risk of fraud over the Christmas period. Retail Decisions (ReD), a payment card issuer and fraud prevention company, said that it expected the value of attempted fraud over the Christmas period to reach £123 million as fraudsters tried to take advantage of a more active online market.

ReD said that the items most likely to be targeted by fraudsters were a Samsung LCD television, Apple iPod touch, Nikon digital cameras, Toshiba laptops and the Nintendo Wii in black.

ReD said: “Fraudsters’ choice of products closely mirrors those of a genuine shopper as they shrewdly choose the most popular ‘must-have’ products which they can resell easily on the black market.”