Households Cutting Spending!

New research by the Citizens Advice Bureau [CAB] shows that half of all households are cutting their spending this year.

Research has shown that 3 in 5 working parents are cutting back on food spending to pay their rent or their mortgage.  People are worried by the impact of coping with sky high child care costs, rising energy bills, while wages are not keeping pace with inflation:

10% of families are putting off buying school uniform;

Over 10% of parents skipped meals;

13% put off buying shoes for their children; while

A staggering 37% put off buying food.

A national survey by CAB showed that 63% of families found that uniforms had to be bought from particular shops and a third of families had to save up for uniforms.

Wyre Forest CAB Manager Kate Bennett said: “The recent start to the school term has put families under special pressure.   “Social housing rent arrear problems have risen by 10% in a year and with earnings so variable and not keeping pace with inflation, people are facing real problems which will worsen when interest rates start to rise.  When interest rates do rise, the increases need to be slow and steady.”

She went on: “We have found that families have been under even greater pressure in the last week or two because of the costs of uniforms.  Some Wyre Forest families have really struggled to kit out their children and have had to resort to food bank vouchers to make ends meet.  Schools need to think about where they require parents to source their uniforms.”

You can contact Wyre Forest Citizens Advice in a variety of ways for free and impartial advice on debt and a range of other issues as follows:

Website Advice: www.adviceguide.org.uk

Free Telephone Advice: 0300 330 0650 (from mobile) 844 4111 303 ( from landline)

Appointments at Wyre Forest Bureau: 01562 60194

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