Other districts where drivers are feeling pain at the pump include Selwyn at 22% (up from 16% in December), Southland at 21% (up from 15) and \u014cp\u014dtiki at 21.5% (up from 19).<\/p>\n
By contrast, Wellington households spent just 5% of their weekly budget on fuel in April, a jump of 1% from December.<\/p>\n
The national media for April was 13% of total discretionary spending, compared to 10% in December.<\/p>\n
Nelson sits at 8% (a 2% increase), and Dunedin and Queenstown at 9% (up 6% and 7% respectively). <\/p>\n
Auckland and Christchurch sit 11% and 10% respectively \u2013 up from 8% and 7.5% in December.<\/p>\n
Dot Loves Data director Justin Lester said the findings showed fuel inflation was becoming \u201can increasingly unavoidable financial burden\u201d for rural New Zealanders.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuel isn\u2019t discretionary spending in rural New Zealand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many families, it\u2019s the cost of getting to work, school, healthcare and even the supermarket. <\/p>\n
\u201cRural families are more exposed to the global fuel shock due to longer travel distances and heavy dependence on private vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n
People in larger cities had more alternatives, and these \u201cinsulated\u201d them from the worst impacts of rising fuel prices, he added. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey can use public transport, travel shorter distances, or work closer to home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rural communities did not have those options available to them. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s beginning to bite [and it] will begin to impact other sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dot Loves Data director Justin Lester. Photo \/ RNZ, Dom Thomas<\/p>\n
The report also found grocery spending in urban centres averaged around 33% of household expenditure, compared with a national median of 41%, further highlighting the sharper affordability pressures outside the main centres.<\/p>\n
Lester said prolonged international instability and higher fuel prices could continue to place significant strain on regional economies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen fuel prices rise, rural households have less flexibility in their budgets, and that pressure flows directly into local businesses and communities. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese numbers show the cost-of-living crisis is not being felt equally across New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Other districts where drivers are feeling pain at the pump include Selwyn at 22% (up from 16% in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[806,11357,138,23852,87910,219,2678,217818,27892,5969,111,139,69,1118,90,13420,23277,1560,3175,8262],"class_list":["post-424755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-as","tag-budget","tag-business","tag-consumers","tag-donaldson","tag-economy","tag-fuel","tag-helyer","tag-household","tag-much","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-quarter","tag-rachel","tag-report","tag-rural","tag-spending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}