MSE News: Huge squeeze hits family budgets

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Families are feeling the biggest pressure on their spending power in more than a year, a study warns today ..."

Read the full story:
Huge squeeze hits family budgets

nellynerd

Is there anything in this report to indicate changes in housing costs, whether rent or mortgage payments?

Frozenace

Rent and Mortgage costs should both have gone up by a fair amount, I would assume.

My halifax mortgage will go up by 50ppm starting next month...

jamesd

Here's the link to the Lloyds TSB Spending Power Report on which this news story is based.

"The Spending Power Report measures payments into Lloyds TSB current accounts and subtracts essential spending – rent, mortgage and required debt payments, utility bills, council tax, TV licences, food and fuel."

It's also worth noting that Lloyds TSB says the report data is highly seasonal and looking at older data now is the time when it normally drops. Also of note is the extensive revision to some of the old data. The April 2011 report gave an index level of 102.3 but the August 2011 one gave a value of 106.3 for apparently the same period.