Household budgets tighter than ever

According to research carried out for the Bank of England's Q4 2008 quarterly bulletin, unsurprisingly, households in the UK have experienced a reduction in disposable income after meeting household bills.

The report also found that many households thought that credit had become harder to access, and more households were finding their debt to be a burden.

Confused.com has looked at ways to help households ease the pressure of debts and decreasing disposable income.

Simon Lamble, product director at Confused.com comments: "We fully understand that pressure on household income has been increasing steadily over the past couple of years, and therefore it's more important than ever for people to realise that there is a simple way to relieve some of that pressure, by exploring ways of reducing their fixed household costs.

"For example, the average saving made by Confused.com customers this year on home and car insurance was £186.13 and £208.62, respectively. In addition to these savings, customers saved an average of £211.26 by switching to a more economical energy tariff. This equates to a total of £50 per month which could be used to help consumers reduce the debt that they are feeling increasingly burdened by.

By simply spending a short amount of time finding the right product at the right price, people could save £1,000s in unnecessary interest payments and alleviate additional years of debt."