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Many People Want To Give Up Gifting For The Holidays, Study Finds

(CNN) — The kids may not want to hear this one. According to a new study, most people want to stop giving gifts over the holiday season.

But before you throw your list of presents out the window, there are some stipulations.

As the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear, a Suntrust study shows many people would rather skip the gifts.

"Almost 7 out of 10 people would give up giving gifts or exchanging gifts this holiday season, if they're friends and family agree to it," says Brian Nelson Ford at SunTrust. "And what the survey also found is 43-percent of people, they feel pressured to overspend maybe even beyond what they can."

Instead, 60-percent of the more than 2000 surveyed online say they would rather spend time with friends and family.

"The majority of Americans would give up gifts for gatherings, which is nice," Ford points out.

If you do decide to shop, Ford says, "We recommend maybe going a little bit old school. So identifying that budget and that limit. Maybe pulling out cash and then realizing that when that cash is gone, it's time to slow things down. Or if you like to shop online, it's kind of setting that limit, and maybe looking at using your debit card just to avoid overspending.

And perhaps have a conversation with your loved ones.

It may save you some financial stress, while making the holidays more meaningful.

"I think we need to remove this burden from ourselves to spend all this money on gifts and realize that this survey really shows that our friends and family are thinking the same thing. It's really about the time that we spend with them as opposed to just the gifts that we are giving."

(©2017 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. By Mary Moloney.)

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