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Still pinching our pennies

September 13, 2022

 

Many of us are still feeling the pinch of ever-present inflation and the rising cost of living – from our mortgages through to petrol and groceries, it seems like it’s been the motto of 2022.

Earlier this year in June, we conducted research to get a read on West Aussie sentiment towards the rising cost of living and how it was impacting them and their spending. The findings painted a grim picture, with 98% of our survey respondents concerned about how expensive it was just to live.

We also found that a whopping 79% feel like they’ll have to be more careful with their spending in the coming year, with a third planning on being a lot more careful!

We promised we’d keep our ear to the ground on the issue so we re-ran this survey this month… And it turns out things haven’t changed too much since then and we’re still conscious of our expenses. A very similar 74% of our respondents revealed they still feel they will need to be more careful with their spending in the year ahead.

Sentiment is pretty universal, too, with no differences between men and women or among different age groups. The only group tightening their belts a little more than others is young families, with 85% of them saying they need to be more careful (compared to around 75% of other household types, like those with no kids or mature families).

This month, we also dug a little deeper into what’s concerning people most – and it looks like interest rates is the thing keeping a lot of us up at night! Over 8 in 10 (84%) who we spoke to said they’re concerned about rising interest rates, with almost a quarter (23%) extremely concerned. It’s those most likely to be in the real-estate market and paying mortgages who are unsurprisingly the most concerned. 91% of 18-34 year-olds are concerned, followed by 87% of 35-54 year-olds and 72% of over 55s.

With petrol prices up and down and no clear indication of whether inflation will slow down or keep going, we’re sure to be re-visiting this again in the future – and hopefully with a slightly more optimistic outlook to report back!