{"id":504319,"date":"2026-03-31T00:40:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T00:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/504319\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:40:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T00:40:23","slug":"households-are-cutting-back-favoring-cheaper-options-survey-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/504319\/","title":{"rendered":"Households are cutting back, favoring cheaper options, survey finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"600\" class=\"picture-main-block-image\" data-nxsrc=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/intime-super-market-eldelry-prices.jpg\" alt=\"Households are cutting back, favoring cheaper options, survey finds\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/intime-super-market-eldelry-prices-960x600.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>[InTime News]<\/p>\n<p>Consumers are facing sharply higher costs for everyday goods, forcing many households to cut back on discretionary spending, according to recent data and surveys.<\/p>\n<p>While the volume of goods purchased has remained roughly the same over the past 20 years, prices are now about 30% higher on average, NielsenIQ reported at its annual \u201cShopper Trends\u201d conference.<\/p>\n<p>Supply chain disruptions, energy-driven inflation linked to the war in Ukraine and the latest Middle East crisis have pushed food prices up 22% since 2022 and nearly 38% compared with 2020, according to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT).<\/p>\n<p>Rising living costs have weakened purchasing power, leaving Greece last in the European Union in 2025 in per capita GDP measured by purchasing power, at 68% of the EU average alongside Bulgaria.<\/p>\n<p>Social indicators show the share of people facing severe material and social deprivation reached 14.9% last year, with 27.5% at risk of poverty \u2013 the second-highest rate in the EU after Bulgaria. Households are adjusting by cutting discretionary spending.<\/p>\n<p>Research by Circana found most consumers are dining out and traveling less, and spending less on clothing and entertainment. Price increasingly outweighs brand loyalty: 60% buy mostly discounted items, more than 40% favor private-label products and many compare prices before purchasing.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[InTime News] Consumers are facing sharply higher costs for everyday goods, forcing many households to cut back on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,5704,1294,1431,632,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-504319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-conflict","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-inflation","12":"tag-middle-east","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}