Four out of ten Greeks borrow money in order to pay utility and other bills. Also 40% states that they have not enough money to live a decent life due to lay-offs, unemployment, wage cuts, increased taxes and the price of heating oil, and declare that utility bills -electricity, telephone, water -and traffic fines are just kept in the drawers.
These are the results of a survey about the degree of responsibility of economic obligations of European households. The survey was conducted by Dutch company Trendbox.
39% of Greeks state that they borrow money to pay their bills, mainly from family members and friends, while some overload their credit carts.
57% admit that they have difficulties in coping monthly with their obligations.
67 % agree that bills must be paid on time.
Unemployment and wages cuts are considered the biggest problems, while wage cuts, lay-offs, tax increases and heating oil prices are considered as the reasons for delay in paying bills.
Greece is in the last position on the list of 21 countries that were conducted for the survey.
Greeks have the lowest savings grade in Europe: the rate of Greeks who save a fix amount per month barely reaches 16 percent.
On European-wide level:
9:10 Europeans believe that their government and the EU do not really have control over the finances.
The final conclusion of the survey results that were presented on Wednesday shows that the economic crisis in Europe is causing problems for citizens to manage their finances. And that this happens even in countries not directly affected by the crisis, such as Germany .
Europe-wide one out of four claim that after paying their monthly bills they have left without money.
In the crisis countries ( Greece , Ireland , Portugal and Hungary) over one-third of the citizens ‘ struggle ‘ to meet basic expenses.
Interesting is finally, that one out of three German states that can not cope with the income they have.