High Anxiety

Between January and April/May 2008, the percentage of consumers who reported feeling either "high" or "severe" anxiety about their personal economic and financial situations rose from 33% to 54%. Since January, consumers have shown that they're more likely to feel the pinch in five specific areas:

• Having enough money to put food on the table
• Keeping up with the cost of living
• Getting out of debt
• Having enough money to retire on
• The cost of gasoline

With increasing anxiety comes a greater willingness to cut back, trade off and change shopping habits. There are several actions that the majority of consumers with high/severe anxiety indicated they are more likely to take in 2008 than they were in 2007:

• Shop at several stores to get the best prices rather than shopping for everything at one store
• Go out of the way to shop in grocery stores that have cheaper prices
• Allow more time to pass between haircuts and other personal services
• Shop at the same stores you do now, but only when they have a sale
• Clip or download grocery coupons

Source: Yankelovich MONITOR 2007/2008

-Amy-