Moneysaving tips

Many people are suffering a living standards squeeze, and are finding ways to save

AS the cost of living crisis continues to bite, people are cutting back on the food they buy and employing money saving tips. At the start of July, the vast majority of people (91%) say their cost of living had increased over the past month, according to a survey by the Office for National Statistics, which was unchanged from mid-june, but has risen from 62% in early November.

Among those, 96% have seen the cost of a food shop rise, 84% have seen energy bills increase, 75% say the price of fuel is up, and 20% say their rent or mortgage got more expensive.

The survey found people are employing a number of techniques to keep up with the cost of essentials.

Worryingly, at the start of July, half (49%) of people said they had bought less food in the past two weeks, the highest proportion since the survey began in September, when it was 8%.

A fifth of people (20%) said they had borrowed more money or used more credit in the past month compared to this time last year.

The most common ways to cope with the cost of living rise were spending less on non-essentials (62%), using less gas or electricity at home (53%), cutting back on nonessential journeys in a vehicle (46%), and shopping around more (38%).

When asked about energy (and money) saving tips, around three in five (63%) adults said that they had turned down their central heating temperature, almost half (46%) had turned down their heating in a specific room when not using it, and around two in five (41%) had turned down their radiators.

As well as this, around half (51%) of adults said they had closed all the curtains at night to keep the heat in, around half (49%) said they had washed their clothes at a lower heat, and around two in five (44%) said they had turned their appliances off standby.

Around three-quarters of adults were very or somewhat worried about the rising cost of living (78%).

The proportion of people reporting they are behind on rent or mortgage payments has doubled from one in 50 (2%) in mid-june to one in 25 (4%) in the most recent survey - the highest rate since the question began being asked in March.

One in 17 people (6%) reported being behind on their gas or electric bills in the most recent survey, up from one in 25 (4%) in mid-june, and is the highest it has been since it was also 6% in late March.