FAMILIES in Scotland are £10 a week better off than they were this time last year, the largest annual increase in the average household's spending power since 2009.
A new report has found that the domestic finances have been given a boost by drops in the the price of petrol and the cost of electricity and gas, while wages have also begun to rise.
According to the latest Asda Income Tracker for December, families north of the border had £180 per week to spend once taxes and bills had been paid for, up from £172 in 2013 and £170 the year before that.
The price of filling up their vehicles at the petrol pumps fell by a record 10.5 per cent at the end of 2014. The cost of petrol dropped to just 116.3p per litre and diesel to 122.2p per litre, while electricity and gas prices fell by 2.1 per cent year on year.
Also helping families to beat the January financial blues has been the a drop in the price of food and drink, which went down by l 1.7 per cent last month and essential item inflation fell to just 0.2 per cent.
At the same time, wages grew at 1.8 per cent as the economy continued to improve and leave the dark days of recession behind.
The number of people in work also remains stable, with the the government announcing that Scotland's unemployment rate stands at 5.7 per cent, just below the UK rate of 5.8 per cent.
The tracker found other indicators that household budgets were likely to stay in the black, with the cost of living in Scotland increasing by just 0.1 per cent over the past year, while average discretionary incomes grew by 6.0 per cent, equalling £10 in the average person's pocket each week.
With the exception of Wales, all regions in the UK saw an acceleration in income growth, driven by a combination of increasing employment and better pay.
Sam Alderson, Economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research said: "Households are currently experiencing a considerable boost to their finances from the combined effects of rapidly falling, record low inflation, rising employment, and wage growth at its fastest since the financial crisis."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article