Conversely, 28% of respondents state they have no intention of curtailing their spending, while 15.3% declined to answer or were unable to assess the situation.

Budgetary cutbacks are affecting non-essential household expenses across the board. Among the respondents acknowledging the need to reduce spending, dining out stands out as the primary sacrifice, cited by 82.1% of the sample.

The clothing and accessories sector follows closely at 73.9%, trailed by travel and non-essential trips (67.9%) and cultural goods and activities (61.9%).

Financial restraint also extends to vacations (45.5%) and the frequency of personal car use (33.6%). Even basic food purchases are being restricted to a lesser extent by 21.6% of the affected households.

This intense pressure on personal finances coincides with an adverse macroeconomic climate in the Eurozone, characterised by persistently high interest rates and accelerating inflation.

In March, the implicit interest rate on mortgage contracts reversed its downward trend, recording its first monthly increase since the start of 2024 and settling at 3.088%.

This fluctuation pushed the average indexed instalment to 402 euros, the highest level since December 2024.

Despite a slight technical dip in the rate to 3.065% in May, the relief was ultimately offset by a rise in year-on-year inflation to 3.3%, a surge driven primarily by the rising cost of energy and raw materials in international markets.

Despite the financial strain affecting the retail and services sectors, the uptake of formal solutions offered by the banking system remains very low. Statistical data show that only 23% of mortgage holders attempted to renegotiate interest rates or modify contract terms with their financial institutions.

When this figure is extrapolated to the entire Portuguese population, the percentage of citizens who sought to revise their real estate financing contracts drops to a mere 9%, demonstrating that the vast majority of families choose to manage their liquidity by cutting back on private consumption rather than initiating debt restructuring processes with banks.