What have you given up due to COVID-19?

People have been asked to give up a lot in 2020 because of COVID-19, from going into the office to travel to even being able to go out to dinner freely. This may explain why 68% of Singaporean adults have made some cutbacks on spending in the last 12 months, with 37% having specifically reeled in their discretionary spending, including buying clothes or dining out, according to an analysis by Finder.com of data collected by Milieu Insight.

And with the holiday period just around the corner, those hoping to get a decent haul of gifts may want to reset their expectations, with about a quarter of Singaporeans adults (24%) cutting back on buying gifts for family and friends.

And quite dangerously, routine medical check-ups and services such as dental check-ups or mammograms are coming in as the third most likely thing that Singaporeans are cutting back on because of COVID-19. However, it’s worth noting this might be due to the lockdown measures themselves, rather than financial pressure to cut back on spending.

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Men are more likely to be tightening the purse strings

Singaporean men are more likely to say they’ve cut back on spending than women, with 71% of men saying they’ve made some changes to their spending habits as a result of COVID-19 compared to 64% of women.

Both men and women listed discretionary spending as the number one outgoing on the chopping block, with 37% of men and 36% of women saying they’ve cut back in this area. Men and women both listed buying gifts for family and friends as their number two area of saving, with 24% of men and 23% of women cutting back here.

While both men and women listed routine medical check-ups as their third most likely area to cut back on, men were far more likely to do so with 22% of men saying they were finding savings here versus just 16% of women. Tied as the third most likely area for Singaporean women to look for sayings was scrapping gym memberships (also 16%).

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Younger adults most likely to be cutting back on spending

Almost three-quarters (73%) of those between the ages of 25 and 34 said that they’d cut back on spending in some areas, with those aged 35 to 44 the next most likely group to be spending less at 70%.

Those aged 16 to 24, 45 to 54 and 55 and older had 65% saying they’d made some changes to their spending habits.

Once more, discretionary spending was the number one area where people were looking to save some cash. All age groups (except for those aged 45 to 54) listed buying gifts for family and friends as their second most common area of savings, with 45 to 54 years olds listing cutting back on medical checks as their next biggest area to save money.

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Surprisingly, employment doesn’t have a major impact on your financial decisions

In what may be one of the more interesting findings, whether or not you’re currently employed doesn’t seem to have a huge impact on how you’re planning to cut back on spending, with the majority of those both with and without jobs planning to save on costs in line with the population at large.

The one area that stood out was cutting back on check-ups, as those with jobs (21%) were more likely to say they were making savings in this area than those without jobs (12%).

Other interesting trends

Of all the demographic groups with a large enough sample size (over n=30), those who’d had children in the last 12 months were the most likely to be cutting costs, with 48% saying they’d either cut back on discretionary spending or buying gifts for family and friends, and 45% saying they’d skipped a medical check-up.

• Methodology

  This data was collected from a survey of 1,008 Singaporeans aged 16 and above, conducted by Milieu in October 2020.

Image: Getty