The average Australian uses plastic to make their purchases almost 18 times a month, a 50 per cent increase over the past decade. While we are still using our credit cards more often than debit cards (10 times a month compared with around 8 times), the gap is closing. At the same time, fewer Aussies are taking less cash out of automatic telling machines than a year ago, a trend that has been in place for more than a year.
While we are using our credit cards more often, we are paying off the debt, with the average balance falling by 6 per cent in the past 17 months.
Aussies are showing no sign of ditching their new-found virtue of financial conservatism. Credit card debt is down, fees are being avoided and consumers are more likely to use technology to make price comparisons before parting with their hard-earned money.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
