Ordinary Ledger: 66% can afford less, and 44% have cut necessary car trips

Surveys about money usually measure mood. This one, from the European Investment Bank’s annual climate survey, measures behaviour, and that makes it worth reading slowly¹.

The ledger. - 66% of people in Germany say they can afford noticeably less because energy prices rose over the past year, against an EU average of 60%¹. - 42% have turned the heating down¹. - 40% are saving on food or health spending¹. - 44% have cut necessary car journeys, for shopping, doctors’ appointments or visits to public offices; the EU average is 31%¹. - 28% now drive more slowly to save fuel¹.

Some of these are good housekeeping. Others are the warning lights. A colder living room is a choice; a skipped trip to the doctor or the town hall is a cost deferred, often to a moment when it is larger. The EIB’s vice-president, Nicola Beer, called high energy prices “an enormous burden” for millions, as quoted by Bild¹.

What the dull advice is worth. According to the consumer advice centres, every degree less room temperature cuts heating energy use by about 6%; rooms should not stay below 16 °C, to avoid damp and mould¹. The Federal Environment Agency puts the saving from a water-saving shower head at €100 to €200 per person a year in hot-water costs¹. It also says a car at 100 km/h instead of 120 uses about 15% less fuel on the same stretch¹. In Euronews’s worked example, a petrol car using 8 litres per 100 km at 120 km/h, at €2.11 a litre, saves about €2.53 per 100 km; over 5,000 motorway kilometres a year that is around €127¹. Your car, route and traffic will change the figure¹.

What it means for you. Take the cheap, reversible savings first: a degree in rooms you barely use, short bursts of airing instead of tilted windows, a switchable power strip for the television corner¹. Keep the appointments. If the budget truly no longer stretches, the institutions built for that moment, from the consumer advice centre’s energy check to your local housing-benefit office, are cheaper than a cold flat or a missed diagnosis. Nothing here is investment advice.