People are proving reluctant to cut down on eating out, despite tightening budgets.
Many indebted Britons are in denial about their excessive spending, a charity warned today.
According to Debt Free Direct, people are being especially reluctant to give up eating out in expensive restaurants as the credit crunch worsens. The financial crisis - which moved into a new, potentially very serious, new stage earlier this month with the government-backed takeover of lender HBOS - has cut off easy access to credit for many people.
Coupled with this budget squeeze is a boom in food and fuel prices, which has pushed inflation up to a 16-year high of 4.7 percent.
Correspondingly, restaurant prices are on the up, with the average cost of a meal in London going up by 3.7 percent in the past year according to Zagat. The pollsters also found that 82 percent of respondents were defying the credit crunch by going out "as much, if not more" as they did one or even two years ago.
Derek Oakley, operations director at Debt Free Direct, said: "Debt is widespread throughout the UK, including London. People become concerned when their debt becomes unmanageable and they are unable to meet their financial obligations. We urge customers to act quickly to start to address their debt problem, even though this can sometimes feel uncomfortable and perhaps frightening."
He added: "Those people who continue to purchase luxuries such as restaurant meals while in serious debt are perhaps those people who haven't yet faced up to their financial situation. Recognising a debt problem is the first step to dealing with it."
