Paying The Bills

Toronto, ON - According to an Ipsos-Reid/epost survey released today, half of Canadians (53%) would prefer to tackle organizing "personal photos" (22%), "closets" (15%), or "kitchen cupboards" (15%) before organizing their personal "bills and finances" (46%).

And, while most Canadians (65%) say they usually keep the bills they receive "in a file or filing cabinet, a specific place just for bills," one- third (31%) keep their bills "in random piles around the house" (14%), "in a junk drawer or storage container with other items" (10%), or "posted on the fridge or bulletin board" (7%).

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/epost poll conducted from November 9th to November 11th, 2004. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1002 adult Canadians were interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 1773.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.

Given a list of four tasks, half (53%) of Canadians said that if they had to choose, they would prefer to tackle organizing their "personal photos" (22%), "closets" (15%), or "kitchen cupboards" (15%) before organizing their "bills and finances" (46%). Just 1% of Canadians say they "don't know" which task they would prefer to tackle first.

• Residents of Saskatchewan/Manitoba (37%) are least likely to choose to organize their bills and finances first, followed by residents of Quebec (42%), Alberta (45%), British Columbia (46%), Atlantic Canada (48%), and Ontario (51%).
• Women are less likely then men to say they would prefer to tackle organizing their bills and finances first (35% vs. 58%). On the other hand, women are more likely than men to prefer to organize personal photos (28% vs. 16%) or kitchen cupboards (19% vs. 11%).

Two-thirds (65%) of Canadians say they usually keep the bills they receive "in a file or filing cabinet, a specific place just for bills." However, others keep their bills "in random piles around the house" (14%), "in a junk drawer or storage container with other items" (10%), or "posted on the fridge or bulletin board" (7%). Only 3% of respondents say "none" of these places describes where they keep their bills and just 1% say they "don't know."

• Ontarians (69%) are most likely to say they usually keep the bills they receive in a file or filing cabinet, followed by residents of Quebec (66%), Alberta (65%), British Columbia (63%), and Atlantic Canada (62%). Residents of Saskatchewan/Manitoba (50%) are less likely to say so.
• Those aged 55 and over (73%) are more likely than those aged 35-54 (69%) and those aged 18-34 (53%) to say they usually keep their bills in a file or filing cabinet, a specific place just for bills. Canadians aged 18-34 (20%) are most likely to say they keep their bills in random piles around the house, followed by those aged 35-54 (13%), and those aged 55 and over (8%).
• Canadians with an annual household income of $30,000 or more (68%) are more likely than those with less than $30,000 (56%) to say they keep their bills in a specific place.

For more information on this news release, please contact:
Jennifer McLeod
Senior Research Manager
Ipsos-Reid
416.324.2900
[email protected]

Ipsos-Reid
Ipsos-Reid is Canada's market intelligence leader and the country's leading provider of public opinion research. With operations in eight cities, Ipsos-Reid employs more than 300 researcher professionals and support staff in Canada. The company has the biggest network of telephone call centres in Canada, as well as the largest pre-recruited household and on-line panels. Ipsos-Reid's Canadian marketing research and public affairs practices are staffed with seasoned research consultants with extensive industry-specific backgrounds, offering the premier suite of research vehicles in Canada--including the Ipsos Trend Report, the leading source of public opinion in the country--all of which provide clients with actionable and relevant information. Ipsos-Reid is an Ipsos company, a leading global survey-based market research group.

To learn more, please visit www.ipsos.ca.

Ipsos
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