Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's why more New Zealanders are picking family time over presents. Hosted by Frances Cook.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, or maybe the most stressful.

Christmas is traditionally a time of big spending, but new research shows New Zealanders are getting sick of that.

The Commission for Financial Capability has released research that shows what most of us really look forward to at this time of year.

For 62 per cent of us, it's time with family. That's closely followed by enjoying the summer weather at 37 per cent, and time off work at 33 per cent.

What we're enjoying least is the commercialism of the season, which annoys 36 per cent of us. It's closely followed by 35 per cent of us saying it's too expensive, and 34 per cent dreading the shopping.

The worst part is that all of this stress may be for nothing, as one in four of us got at least one unwanted gift last year. For those of us who did, 42 per cent of us have it still sitting in a cupboard, unused.

Honestly, this just seems like a lot of silly social pressure to do something that less and less of us are interested in, when we could be enjoying the much more fun parts of Christmas. So, how can we do it better?

For the latest Cooking the Books I talked to Tom Hartmann, from the Commission for Financial Capability.

We discussed why people are moving away from an overload of presents, what to do about Christmas debt, and how to keep the magic of Christmas while staying on a budget.

If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/' Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz/ and Twitter here https://twitter.com/FrancesCook