United Kingdom: Sociable Britons spending more on eating and drinking out

Smoking and drinking at home declines as focus shifts to restaurants and hotels, study finds

Source: FT

by: Gemma Tetlow, Economics Correspondent

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

Britons are spending more on eating and drinking out but less on alcohol at home and tobacco.

Although total spending during the year to March 2016 was unchanged from a year earlier, the choices made by consumers shifted towards more sociable activities, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday.

Weekly household expenditure in the UK averaged £528.90, excluding mortgage interest payments, still below the peak of £554.80 a week recorded a decade earlier.

“While overall household spending didn’t change much in real terms since the previous year, we did see some interesting shifts in the types of things people are spending their money on,” said Jo Bulman of the ONS.

“The average spending on alcohol and tobacco fell below £12 a household for the first time as people spend less on cigarettes. However, households spent more than £45 a week on restaurants and hotels for the first time in five years.”

Households spent on average £19.70 a week on meals in restaurants, cafés and canteens, £7.50 on alcoholic drinks away from home, including in pubs, £9.10 on takeaways and snacks and £8.90 on hotel accommodation.

The average spending on alcohol and tobacco fell below £12 a household for the first time as people spend less on cigarettes

Office for National Statistics

But spending patterns vary a lot across the country. People in Northern Ireland spend the most on alcohol consumed outside the home, averaging £9.60 a week. People in Scotland and south-east England spend the most on alcohol at home, averaging £8.90 a week, compared with the nationwide average of £7.80.

Wales stands out as the region where people spend the least on alcohol both in and outside the home, spending an average of just £5.20 a week on alcohol away from home and £6.60 at home.

Spending on tobacco also varies significantly across the country. Households in Northern Ireland spend an average of £7.60 a week on tobacco, whereas those in London spend just £2.70. Pensioner households and working age people living alone spend the greatest share of their weekly budget on tobacco, close to 3 per cent.

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Spending on tobacco and alcohol consumed at home has been declining steadily for the past 15 years. In 2001-02 households spent an average of £19.50 a week on these items, compared with just £11.40 during the year to March 2016.

Household spending on eating and drinking out has been increasing during the past few years. But the £45.10 a week that households spent on average on these luxuries in 2015-16 remains below what they spent in 2010 and well below the levels of the early 2000s. In 2002-03, households spent an average of £52.20 a week on restaurants and hotels, expressed in the same price terms.

The largest category of spending was travel, which cost families an average of £72.70 a week – or 14 per cent of total spending. Compared with a year earlier, households spent less on fuel, which fell in price, but more on buying second hand cars and new cars on hire purchase schemes. Excluding mortgage interest payments and council tax, households spent an average of £72.50 a week on other housing and energy costs.