One in five households are just one payday away from financial disaster, new figures have revealed. And the pressure is starting to be felt by middle income families as the cost of living crisis continues.
Insurer Direct Line found that 20% of families would not be able to last a month without getting into difficulties if the main earner was unable to work - and a quarter have no savings at all. Even those who had money set aside were suffering, with almost a third of households saying they had stopped saving altogether and half of those with a savings pot saying they had stopped topping it up.
One in four households had no safety net whatsoever, with two thirds of those admitting they would face financial difficulties within a year if the main breadwinner was unable to work, according to This Is Money. Unsurprisingly, it is the most vulnerable who are at risk. Nine in ten of the lowest income households suffer poor or very poor financial resilience, according to Hargreaves Lansdown and Oxford Economics, because they spend the largest proportion of their earnings on the essentials such as food, fuel and energy.
