Consumers’ spending habits changing

MANY households have seen their incomes drop in recent months and it’s significantly changed their routine spending habits.

Management consultant James Balsillie, 25, recently agreed to temporarily reduce his full-time job back to four days a week, while his wife Courtney, 27, who works in supply and logistics, remains in full-time work.

The pair are both working from home and Mr Balsillie said their joint expenses had fallen by about $200 per week.

“We’ve cut out public transport expenses,” he said. “We spend about $180 each month on that, and we are not using the gym any more – that’s about $100 to $150 per month.”

“We’re not using Uber and we are making lunches at home, so despite spending more on our weekly grocery shops we are spending less on food because we are not eating out as much.”

The couple has signed up to Chris Hemsworth’s Centr app and are exercising outdoors more, which has helped cut expenditure.

Mr Balsillie said they were buying daily coffees and a weekly takeaway meal to support nearby businesses.

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show the strongest retail trade spending since it began tracking the data, climbing by 8.2 per cent seasonally adjusted in March.

This is the largest increase since June 2000, when it rose by 8.1 per cent just before the GST was introduced.

Many households splashed out at supermarkets, liquor stores and speciality food outlets.

Neobank Up’s latest customer data – based on its 225,000 customers – shows huge spending increases in categories including apps and games, home maintenance and hardware, pets, alcohol and internet.

Apps and games spending climbed the most, up 200 per cent in March compared with February.

Up’s head of product, Anson Parker, said overall “categories of spending have contracted and spending has gone elsewhere”.

“It’s not that people are spending less,” he said. “It’s just moving to different categories with the emotional strain and being home bound. It could be buying clothing online or whatever it is, sometimes just as an outlet.”

HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham said many people were shifting the things they spent money on.

“Many people are substituting what they would normally spend outside the home in restaurants, cafes and on activities, and spending it instead on food and items for the home and in the supermarkets,” he said.