It seems consumers in Saskatchewan and across the country are spending more money on their day-to-day needs, even when you take higher gasoline prices out of the equation.
This preliminary finding comes from RBC which tracks activity in its client accounts and credit cards to monitor consumer sentiment. The latest figures are for June.
Now, these are just RBC clients so it is not a complete sampling of the overall market but does offer a snapshot of how we are behaving financially. In Saskatchewan, sales volume for the month was one-percent higher than in
May and roughly six-percent ahead of last year at this time.
The bank’s findings suggest this increase is lower than the rest of the country.
The breakdown of where we are spending is fairly clear, however. Rising gasoline prices have made a difference. We spent five-percent more in June which was 14-percent higher than a year ago. Groceries were actually down in June – slightly but down.
And we spent more on discretionary purchases, especially on entertainment and travel which were up by double digits.
