People are starting to realise that they need a financial savings cushion in order to weather the current economic climate, it has been said.

Ideally, this needs to equate to three months of salary, noted head of consumer finance at lovemoney.com Ed Bowsher.

"Really, the best thing to do is to do your saving in the good times – so we all should have been saving three years ago and would now have to cushion," he suggested.

Mr Bowsher hopes people’s long-term attitudes will also change as a result of the credit crunch and believes they will remember this recession for some time to come.

People should look at the rates they are getting on their savings accounts to see whether their money is working hard enough, he added.

The Office for National Statistics recently found that the household savings ratio, which measures the amount of disposable income households save rather than spend, stood at three per cent during the first quarter of this year.

This is up from four per cent in the final quarter of 2008 and up from -0.8 per cent during the same quarter last year.