Adults spend £792 a year on ‘nouveau bills’
● Items that didn’t exist ten years ago now classed as modern essentials
Adults spend an average of £66 a month on what have been dubbed “nouveau bills” – things which did not exist ten years ago but are now part of daily life.
From mobile data to online subscription services to coffee pods, research from Gocompare, the financial services comparison website, reveals that people fork out £792 a year on such items – a total of £41 billion Uk-wide.
The firm has identified 20 nouveau bills.
Television streaming services, cosmetic treatments, subscription delivery services and online casino and bingo fees also appear on the list, as well as tattoos, which were added as a standard cost because they have become regarded as mainstream.
The report said that the list
0 The report said that the list showed how new technology had transformed the way we live, from how we communicate to how we shop
showed how new technology had transformed the way we live – from how we communicate and access information
to how we shop and entertain ourselves.
It added that society’s obsession with self-improvement
had also changed what we spend our money on.
Other items on the list included ready-to-cook meal delivery services and teeth whitening and Botox injections.
Georgie Frost, consumer advocate at Gocompare, said: “These figures just go to show the extent to which our budgets have been stretched in recent years.
“At a time when incomes have remained relatively unchanged, finding budget for
● Video shop subscriptions: Before the advent of online streaming services, people who wanted to watch a film had to head down to their local Blockbuster and physically choose a video. As well as a joining fee, customers had to pay a rental cost for every film.
● Photographic film processing: Budding photographers had to pay
up to 20 new bills in our lives is a big ask.
“It wasn’t so long ago that we just had to worry about the basic household bills and perhaps the cost of running a car. Now most of us have also acquired a list of online subscriptions, contracts, treatments and services that we suddenly ‘can’t live without’.
“While we might question the necessity of some of the new bills, they are a real and significant drain on funds for many people.” companies such as Boots – or postal film processing firms – to take their films and transform them into holiday snaps which they display in physical albums. ● Classified adverts: While it is still possible to pay for classified ads in a shop window to sell an item, most people under the age of 30 at least would be more likely to turn to free websites like Gumtree to flog their wares.
The survey also asked participants which of the modern goods and services they could not live without.
Broadband – cited by almost three quarters of people – headed the list, followed by smartphones, mobile data, TV streaming services such as Netflix, Now and Amazon and subscription delivery services such as Amazon Prime.
Earlier this year, research from telecoms regulator Ofcom found that the number of UK subscriptions to TV streaming services had overtaken those to traditional pay television for the first time.
Also classed as modern essentials were music streaming services, including Spotify and Deezer, beauty treatments including eyebrow threading and manicures, coffee pods, cloud storage and online newspaper and magazine subscriptions.