ĠEMMA in 2018 launched the Onfoq bil-Għaqal festive season responsible spending education campaign. The identification of the Onfoq bil-Għaqal campaign was based on UK, New Zealand, Australia, US and other research, which showed that many families overspent during the festive seasons, thus creating money management problems for their households. In 2018, ĠEMMA researched to understand persons’ spending behaviour during the festive season and its implications. This research was carried out to establish empirical evidence on whether spending behaviour during the festive season was an issue and the resulting financial implications. The purpose of this research was to obtain intelligence of issues an Onfoq bil-Għaqal campaign should address, the degree of intensity of the campaign, and the resulting impacts of the campaign.
ĠEMMA carried out two surveys – for the person spending in the respective 2019 and 2020 festive seasons, respectively. The research results did not reflect the ĠEMMA apriori hypothesis that people heavily overspent during the festive seasons and max out their credit cards.
ĠEMMA places the survey instruments in English and Maltese and the microdata for public use by researchers and parties interested in the financial capability policy area.