According to the study “Inflation and the war in Ukraine versus the household budgets of Poles”, made by Quality Watch for the BIG InfoMonitor Debt Register, growing inflation and the war in Ukraine motivate Poles to save more than they did in the pandemic.

25% of Poles admit that the current situation affects their attitude to saving money “for a rainy day”. However, almost as many say they cannot afford to set aside.

In June 2021, only 19% of the respondents agreed with the statement that it is worth saving money in case of random events.

Half of Poles declare that they have savings equal to a three-month salary. People over 64, men with higher education, living in agglomerations, are best able to save regularly.

“Crisis situations always mean that we want to increase our sense of security. In terms of savings, the war in Ukraine and the increasing inflation affect us much more than the coronavirus pandemic. After more than a year of a pandemic, 7% of Poles did not see the need to save, and 19% realized that saving is important. As a result of the acceleration of inflation and the outbreak of war, the share of people who do not see the need to save decreased to 4%, and the percentage of people who perceive it increased to 25%, especially among the representatives of the youngest generations”, says Sławomir Grzelczak, the president of BIG InfoMonitor. “Nevertheless, it is disturbing that so many Poles cannot afford to save. This is a factor that may affect problems with the settlement of current, basic obligations in a case of any financial difficulties. And companies acting for the benefit of consumers may have greater difficulties with collecting debts than before”, he adds.

The fact that Poles have been managing their finances more prudently since the start of the pandemic can be seen from the data on consumer arrears. At the end of March, there were 2.68 million people in the BIK credit information database and the BIG InfoMonitor register with arrears worth PLN 76.2 billion. Compared to the situation at the outset of the pandemic, the number of unreliable debtors decreased two years ago by over 150,000 people, and arrears by PLN 3.6 billion.

Adrian Andrzejewski order