Spending habits: How the cost of living crisis is changing the way we spend

Rose Mansell hadn’t considered her spending habits before, but recently she’s been counting every penny:

“It sounds stingy but even £2 for something now I will ask myself ‘Do I need it?’.

Because it all adds up. All the pennies add up.”

The 23-year-old florist from Cheltenham explained that she’s “more aware” of what she is spending on “little bits”. Rose said that when supermarket shopping, she has begun asking herself “Do I need this?” before purchasing:

“I’ve found that the price of everything has crept up. And I’m starting to question whether I need things like alcohol and confectionary.

Things that you don’t technically need. I say to myself ‘Do I need it? No.’”

Everyone has different spending habits. Some people like to save money; some love to spend; some enjoy retail therapy; and others live by a strict budget. But as the cost-of-living crisis continues, people are having to adapt their spending to the current economic climate.

Lately, maintaining a financially stable ‘adult’ life has proved somewhat hard for many, like Rose who said that she has “even had to cut back on buying contact lenses.”

But Rose hasn’t only had to minimize her spending in the supermarket and opticians:

“I’ve had to cancel things like Netflix and Sky, and other things like that.

Its small things that you don’t really think about. I was looking through my bank statements and it’s things like Amazon Prime that you don’t really think about, but it’s like £9 every time.”

Lots of people have been cancelling their streaming subscriptions, but how easy is it to cut out other luxuries that we have become accustomed to? Rose talked about managing her spending around her ‘addiction’ to coffee:

“I’m a bit of a coffee addict so I want to get a coffee every day but recently I’ve told myself ‘No’ because that’s about £5 every day now.

It’s not worth it so I leave the house with coffee in my flask every day.”

There has been a lot of discussion recently around the rising prices of clothing and shoes. Rose said that she has “spent less recently because everything is going up by quite a bit.”

She said: “I feel like the quality is also going down, so you’re spending more but getting less. And so, I’m looking more in charity shops, on Depop and Vinted now.”

The Cost-of-Living crisis has made many of us take a closer look at how we spend and what we spend on. Many people have removed some luxurious habits, potentially reduced routine supermarket spending, and cut down on expensive subscriptions.