Will the uncertainty see a reduction in travel expenditure? Who knows? But a study from CheapHotels4UK, has highlighted where in the world any reduction in spending could originate.
Its recently published Frugal Countries Index delivers a comprehensive look at the thriftiest countries around the world. This was created by analysing a variety of different factors that would determine how frugal and good at saving and spending, different countries are- including the average total of savings per household, as well as the amount of debt, plus expenditure on everyday items.
Its findings show the number one frugal country was Singapore, where the average monthly salary is USD4,544 and the average monthly spend on food is only USD1,297. Ireland and Saudi Arabia came in second and third, with Russia and Germany ranked fourth and fifth. Czech Republic, Poland, South Korea, Sweden and Slovakia made up the rest of the top ten.
The report says Singapore ranked in the top spot due to "the very high average savings" per household, per year: on average, a typical household in Singapore will save 48.1% of their annual income, its findings show.
This is matched by relatively high credit card usage, however, with 49% of people in Singapore owning a credit card - but this does not necessarily mean that there is a high amount of credit card debt to accompany this. Not only this, but the annual outbound tourism expenditure is also only USD22,102 million, which it explains is "surprisingly low" for a country with 5.612 million people, and an average spend of USD3.93 a year per person.
Ireland, ranked second, scored relatively well for most categories, but they achieved the best score for the annual outbound tourism expenditure, which was only USD6,216 million, described as "impressive" for a country with 4.784 million inhabitants. The country also scored well for google search trends for 'budgeting', with a score of 51.8 out of 100 in terms of popularity for the search.
France stood out as the country with the highest rate of spending, with an average monthly spend on food coming to USD2,727.10, and an average of 1.11% of their monthly income being spent towards mobile phone bills. The country with the worst rate of saving was Portugal, with only an average of 16.312% of GDP saved annually, and a popularity score of 11.96 for the search 'budgeting' on Google.