On average, households spent £14,957 per year, making up 22% of all expenditure, on goods and services supplied from outside Guernsey, whether online, by telephone, or while travelling.
Online shopping accounted for £8,474 annually, totalling 13% of average household expenditure, regardless of whether purchases were made from local or off-island suppliers. And locally islanders spent an average of £50,000 over the counter with local providers.
41% of respondents reported having either no savings or savings of less than one month’s income.
A further 24% said they had savings equivalent to between one and six months’ income, while a third reported that they had more than six months’ worth of income set aside.
The report said the age of respondents strongly correlated with how much money they reported having saved relative to their monthly income, but it should be noted that people’s incomes tend to reduce after retirement.
68% of the households that took part in the survey reported that they made ends meet either ‘easily’ or ‘fairly easily’, whereas 11% said they did so either ‘with difficulty’ or ‘with great difficulty’.
The groups of respondents most likely to report difficulties making ends meet were those in affordable market housing tenures and single-parent families.
Changes made during the pandemic, such as greater working from home, is still reflected in household habits.
More than a third of households reported some home working by one or more people under their roof.
Almost a third of households said that they were now producing some food at home, such as keeping chickens for eggs, or growing fruit and vegetables. This was more prevalent among owner-occupiers without mortgages.
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