Most Poles cut shopping budgets

Sixty percent of Poles have reduced their shopping budgets, a 20 percentage-point rise year on year, a survey by the UCE research pollster and Grupa Blix revealed on Friday.

Over 27 percent of this group declared budget cuts of up to 10-15 percent. Most frequently they save on clothing (46.9 percent), condiments and snacks (44.5 percent), and alcohol (40 percent).

Over 26 percent said they had not cut down on their spending and 5.2 percent said they paid no attention to how much they spent on shopping.

The survey found that women are more prone to cutting their spending (64.4 percent) than men (55.2 percent).

According to the survey's authors, the figures show a visible worsening in the economic standing of Poles compared to the same period of last year, when only 40.9 percent declared shopping budget reductions. The slump, they point out, is largely due to rising inflation, though they also name higher interest rates, which have forced even materially secure households to reorganise their spending as their loan rates soared to sometimes more than double the to-date amount.

The computer-assisted survey was carried out on a random sample of 1,034 Poles aged from 18 to 80.