Nearly half of Australians are more confident about their personal finances over the next 12 months at the start of the New Year.
According to the latest Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Rating 43% of Australians expect to be ‘better off’ financially this time next year, a rise of 2% from December last year.
Consumer confidence overall is up 4.6pts since December 2013, to 116.4.
Roy Morgan executive chairman Gary Morgan said the rise was primarily driven by consumer confidence that ‘now is a good time to buy major household items’ (56%, up 5%) and that Australians expect to be ‘better off financially’ this time next year (43%, up 2%).
Consumer confidence is traditionally higher in January, with the year of 2008 being a notable exception.
“However, of concern should be the fact that now 31% (down 1%) of Australians expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next five years
(the lowest since June 1/2, 2013) compared to 22% (down 4%) that expect ‘bad times’.
“In addition compared to this time last year only 29% (down 2%) of Australians say they are ‘better off’ financially and 26% (unchanged) say they are ‘worse off’ financially.”
