Financial problems for Balearic households

MANY more residents in the Balearic Islands have trouble getting to the end of each month than residents on the mainland, according to a recent survey. The survey found that 66.68 percent of Balearic homes have problems in making their monthly net income last until the end of the month (during the second quarter of 2005). This is one percent more than the same time last year and thirteen points more than the Spanish average (55.13 percent). These statistics were revealed by the Survey for Family Budgets carried out by the National Statistics Institute (INE), which discovered that 17.71 Balearic families have extreme money problems at the end of each month. Furthermore, 21.7 percent of those interviewed said that they had difficulty in making their income last all month.
Twenty-seven percent said they had quite a few problems.
On the other hand, only 1.2 percent of Balearic residents said that they can last the month very easily on their net income.
A further 11.17 percent get to the end of the month easily, and 20.94 percent quite easily.
According to the INE study, less than half of the Balearic families can put away a little extra for savings at the end of the month (39 percent), which means that an outstanding 61 percent of families never or hardly ever save any money each month. As a result of the lack of available income, the survey concluded that the Balearic Islands is the worst Spanish region when it comes to families making significant purchases. In fact 71.08 percent of Balearic homes do not have enough money to make these big purchases, which is much higher than the Spanish average of 53 percent and ahead of Galicia (66.32 percent) and Valencia (64.72 percent).
The survey also shows
K Less than
40 pc of families say they are able to save money that average spending per person on the islands came to 2'475.43 euros during the second quarter. This sum represents a four percent increase from the same time in 2004 and 16 percent more than the national average. This average spending is the second highest in Spain, only following spending in Madrid (2'650.13 euros).
Included in this amount for the Balearic Islands is 369.34 euros for food, drinks and cigarettes, and 2'106.09 euros for the remaining expenses.
The region which has less expenditure per person is Extremadura, with average spending at 1'467 euros, followed by Castilla La Mancha (1'778 euros) and Murcia (1'797 euros).