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Credit crunch hurts well-off's retirement preparations
8 April 2008 12:00
current economic uncertainty is compelling many better-off Britons to scale down their saving for retirement, a new survey has found, with potentially damaging consequences.
With inflation presently standing at 5.7 per cent on goods and services used by middle-class families, Axa's poll has now shown that nearly three out of four households with total annual incomes of at least £30,000 expect to have to cut their expenditure.
As a result, one in five well-off Britons expect to have to reduce or stop their pension contributions, with nearly one in three blaming this on a general lack of money, while one in seven put it down to high house prices and a similar share attributed it to debts.
Yet Axa's Steve Folkard warned higher earners that preparing for retirement is not just about deciding what they want to do but how they are going to pay for it, adding that many of them are at risk of seeing their lifestyle decline once they have finished working.
This study echoes more general trends within the UK, with a recent poll by the Post Office showing that nearly half of all people not saving claim to be unable to afford to, while there were also signs of wariness over savings products due to the credit crunch.
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