In April, all three income groups increased spend on food & grocery, purchasing items such as chocolate eggs and gift boxes to celebrate Easter. Spring sales in fashion encouraged a slight uptick in the percentage of consumers spending more on clothing & footwear, driven mainly by low income earners. Top earners saved more, but also spent more on experiences such as services and travel, influenced in part by the long bank holiday and warmer weather.

A net of 5.8% of high earners increased their spend on entertainment and a net of 3.1% middle income earners said they spent more on home retail to make use of time to spring clean and update their homes.

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About the tracker 

GlobalData’s monthly retail spend tracker survey of 2,000 UK consumers monitors:

Consumers’ disposable income and the monthly percentage increase in this
The average disposable income (income after tax) of high, medium and low income consumers and the percentage increase/decrease in average disposable income in the given month, compared to the previous month. These groups are divided based on income data published by the ONS.

Average spend allocation of disposable income
• The proportion of disposable income spent on each of the following categories in the given month:
• Essentials such as rent, mortgage and utilities
• Travel such as fuel and automotive costs
• Services such as eating out, nightlife, streaming services and cinema
• Savings such as investment in pension and savings accounts
• Holidays such as cruises, hotels and package holidays
• Retail including food & grocery, clothing & footwear, health & beauty, electrical goods, home (including DIY & gardening, furniture & floorcoverings and homewares), entertainment (books, music & film and video & computer games) and other retail spend
• Other

Monthly change in retail spend

Whether consumers spent more or less on the retail sectors listed above in the given month compared to the previous month