Households prioritises leisure spending in 2023

Brits increased their spending on leisure activities in 2023 to offset cost of living crisis pressures.

Monzo Bank’s yearly spending report, which sheds a light on the shopping habits of its eight million plus customers in Britain, showed a spike in Netflix subscriptions in 2023, with spending on the platform increasing by nearly a quarter after it did away with password sharing in May.

Cinemas also enjoyed a bumper year, with spending surging by 260% in summer when box office smashes Barbie and Oppenheimer were released, compared with the daily average up to then.

The report also showed that people chose to spend money on tickets for live shows.

Spending on Ticketmaster increased by 340% on 7 Feb when Beyonce released tickets for her Renaissance world tour, compared to the average spend during the previous seven days.

And spending rocketed further – by 460% - on 10 July for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour pre-sale, which is estimated to make the singer around £4.1 billion by the time it ends November next year.

Monzo’s report also compared spending across the regions, with Leicester coming out as the nightlife capital of the UK, spending the most on late-night entertainment.

Meanwhile, Scousers spent more than anywhere else on late-night food between 11pm and 4am.

People in the Capital were really ‘Loving It’, visiting McDonald’s most frequently after dark.

And McDonald’s was also among the top place for eating out across the UK too except in Sunderland and Newcastle where homegrown favourite, Greggs, ruled supreme.

Monzo customers were more likely to fill their trollies at Tesco in all regions except London, where they prefer Sainsburys.

Monzo customers will be able to access their own end-of-year spending report and they’ll be able to see if they’re among the top 5% of spenders on apps like Uber and Deliveroo.