Household finances stable despite economic instability
ING Direct's Financial Wellbeing Index for Q4 2011 has revealed that despite economic instability, Australian household financial situations improved or at least remained stable until the end of the year.
Two-thirds of Australians believe their financial situation improved or at least stabilised despite an abundance of bad economic news in 2011, according to the latest ING Financial Wellbeing Index.
"By shoring up their financial wellbeing throughout 2011, the majority of Australians have been able to shrug off much of the economic bad news," said ING Direct chief executive Don Koch.
One in four households have share market investments, while half of all households have no investments or assets outside of the family home. The median value for total assets in each household was $126, 966, while one in four has less than $50,000 in assets.
The level of comfort with long-term assets and property fell from 88 to 86 in Q4, while the level of comfort with credit card spending has continued to increase in line with households deleveraging from debt.
An average of 1.7 credit cards per household did not stop the median level of household savings improving to its highest level in the last 12 months, possibly because 58 per cent of card holders typically pay their balance each month and the number of people without a credit card rose 6 per cent from the third quarter.
Comfort with savings is still low, however, with 19 per cent of Australians advising they have no savings at all.
Mortgage indicators remained quite stable from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. There was a slight downturn in the number of people paying down ahead of time, and the median mortgage balance fell slightly in the fourth quarter.
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