Early days of ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ scheme has driven a 14% increase

Yolt, the smart-thinking money app, has revealed new data from its users which demonstrated that in the first few days of the ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ scheme (Monday 3 August – Wednesday 5 August) eating out transactions rose by 14% when compared to the same period the week previously (Monday 27 – Wednesday 29 July).

In July overall when lockdown measures were eased and restaurants and bars around the UK opened back up, spend on eating out shot up by 127% compared to spending at the height of lockdown in April.

Despite this return to social spending, users have not forgotten lessons learned during lockdown and have continued to save more consistently throughout July, with a 10% increase in the amount of times they contributed to their savings each week compared to June, and 36% more regularly compared to pre-lockdown February.

Pauline van Brakel, chief product officer at Yolt, comments: “It is great to see people taking advantage of the ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ scheme and taking the right steps towards smart spending. It is also encouraging to see that even with the temptation to spend more now, people are still remaining consistent with their efforts to save and they are seemingly trying to continue that habit going forward, particularly as we face economic uncertainty in light of Covid-19.

“We want to empower users to be smart with their money, to help them find a new way of balancing spending and saving, and to turn their good financial intentions into action in the most effortless way possible. We are currently testing a new iteration of our app to do just that.”