Egg have warned consumers that they need to put more money into their savings accounts in case they suffer loss of income and start slipping into debt.
The group found in a recent survey that only just over half of British consumers could live off their savings for four months, leaving the rest vulnerable to serious debt if things went wrong.
Tobias van der Meer from Egg commented, "As a rule of thumb, it has long been considered sensible for families to have cash savings of at least three months income, for any of life's emergencies."