The country's biggest bank is reporting that its customers' card spending dropped 1.8% year-on-year in August, with the types of spending "most sensitive to interest rates" experiencing the largest falls.
A detailed data pack for August compiled by ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner highlights that durables, clothing and other discretionary spending, and housing saw big falls.
"The flattening off in the tourism recovery is also evident in the data," she said.
Statistics NZ's recent release of industry-wide electronic cards data for August showed the first seasonally-adjusted rise in spending for some seven months - however, spending was still down on a year-on-year basis.
The ANZ data gives very granular information. It is presented in rolling 3-month average terms (3mma) to make trends clearer. The data is also seasonally adjusted (sa) where the diagnostics support this.
Zollner said while the year-on-year decline in durables spending had "found a floor in June", many other categories slipped further.
"The only categories not in the red year-on-year are miscellaneous services and miscellaneous goods (supermarkets are in this category). Utilities & repairs took a dive having previously been resilient."
On tourism-related spending, Zollner said the spending in this category "is down further" year-on-year .
A lift in spending at tourist activities "may reflect more kiwis choosing to take holidays within New Zealand rather than offshore. This category has had strong growth for over two years".
However, things have "abruptly" become tough for accommodation providers.
"Spending in this category has dived dramatically [as shown in graph form below] in the past six months as the international tourism recovery has flattened off, business travel has been curtailed, and consumers cut down on weekends away," Zollner said.
"Accommodation providers will be hoping for strong forward bookings for the summer season to restore cashflow."
Housing-related spending "continues to move further into the red", Zollner said, with Spending in this category down 5.3% year-on-year.
"Construction materials slipped into negative territory, completing the sea of red for this group. Falls could be a mix of lower sales volumes and price reductions," she said.
"Sharply weaker construction activity is clearly having a big impact on this category."
And finally, it seems we've been granting ourselves "ever-smaller treats".
Zollner said spending across a range of discretionary spending types continues to fall, now down 5.2% year-on-year.
"Restaurants & bars is by far the largest category in this group and here spending continues to shrink, having peaked in March last year."
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