AN OVERWHELMING EIGHT out of ten households in Ireland have reduced spending to deal with the economic downturn according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The figures come from a breakdown of research from September 2012 and also shows that 40 per cent of households have experienced problems keeping up with bills and debts.

The CSO numbers released today contain a raft of facts that demonstrate how people are struggling to deal with the economic crisis. Cutting back on going out to pubs and restaurants is the most likely area of saving with 65 per cent of households going out less, but this is far from the only area of saving:

(Source: Central Statistics Office)

Some 14 per cent of owner occupied households with a mortgage were unable to make mortgage repayments on time at least once while almost one in five (19 per cent) of all renters say that they were late with rent at least once.

Debt

43 per cent of households surveyed said that they were experiencing great difficulty or some difficulty keeping up with debt with 69 per cent of single parent households saying they were in difficulty managing debt.

Looking specifically at those in debt difficulty, one surprising finding is perhaps that the biggest reason for problems was not necessarily a reduction in income. 47 per cent those struggling said that problems were due to loss of income while 73 per cent said it was due to higher than expected or additional costs.

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