Abacus Daily Debt News

Britons ‘proud to be frugal’

Keeping up with the Jones's is less about boasting of spending more but of cutting back in an age of austerity, it has been claimed.

A poll by uSwitch found 88 per cent of people prefer to talk about how they are cutting down, with only a small minority preferring to brag about how much they are able to spend, while two thirds tend to talk about how little they are paid, not how much.

This shift in attitudes may help some people come to terms with debt that may have accumulated in past attempts to live up to the expectations of others.

Now may be the ideal time for those in such a situation to go for debt consolidation measures, or a debt management solution.

The hard economic situation may continue next year, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) and Institute of Directors (IoD).

Cebr economist Owen James said an IoD prediction of just 1.2 per cent economic growth in 2011 is likely to be accurate.

By James Francis