Squeezed consumers shunned dining out while bumping up spending on takeaways and streaming last month, figures show.
Payments for digital content, including TV hits such as Succession and Ted Lasso, were up by 4.1 per cent – the highest growth in five months, according to Barclays.
Restaurant spending fell 5.6 per cent, while takeaways were up 9.2 per cent.
Nights in: Payments for digital content, including TV hits such as Succession and Ted Lasso (pictured), were up by 4.1% – the highest growth in five months
Households have also been tightening their belts when it comes to essentials, the data suggests.
Grocery spending was up 7.1 per cent, but that is much lower than the rate of grocery inflation, which is running at 18.2 per cent.
Esme Harwood, a director at Barclays, said it showed consumers were ‘still trying their hardest to shave money off their weekly shop’.
Overall consumer card spending rose by 4 per cent, trailing behind the headline rate of inflation at 10.4 per cent.
A poll commissioned by Barclays also found more than half of consumers are cutting down on eating out.
Separately, figures from the British Retail Consortium showed growth of 5.1 per cent in March compared with last year. That was helped by Mother’s Day sales at florists and card shops.
