Keeping up with monthly bills leaves another financial test for paycheck-to-paycheck consumers: finding room for expenses they hadn’t planned to pay.
In October, 32.5% of consumers living paycheck to paycheck without issues paying bills reported an unexpected expense of $1,200 or more in the previous 90 days, up from 27.1% in August. That increase was more than twice the percentage point gain among consumers who do not live paycheck to paycheck, according to PYMNTS Intelligence’s “Keeping Up Gets Harder: Debt Confidence Falls Among Bill Payers.”
The group represents about 4 in 10 consumers. Its members describe themselves as comfortably paying their bills, making their ability to accommodate additional costs a concern for banks and lenders serving a substantial share of households.
Their exposure to large unexpected expenses also moved closer to that of consumers already struggling with bills. In August, the two groups were separated by 6.5 percentage points. By October, the gap had narrowed to 1.7 points: 32.5% among those without payment difficulties versus 34.2% among those with them.
Consumers outside the paycheck-to-paycheck population remained less exposed. Their share reporting an unexpected expense of at least $1,200 rose from 23.0% to 25.2% over the same period.
More Unplanned Costs as Consumers Limit Debt
For households still managing their bills, the increase in unexpected expenses coincided with a sharp decline in confidence about existing obligations.
The share confident in managing current debt over the next 12 months fell from 71.2% in September to 61.1% in October. That was the group’s lowest reading since the series began in October 2025, four percentage points below its previous low in April.
The weakness extended to savings. The group’s Savings Capacity score fell 2.9 points to 54.7 in October, while its broader Personal Financial Resilience score declined 2.3 points to a series low of 57.8. All five dimensions of that subindex declined.
More of these consumers are also taking steps to limit debt. From August to October, the share of these consumers who paid down debt faster or avoided new debt because of job or income worries rose from 15.2% to 21.2%. Among employed consumers in this group, 30.7% considered job loss at least somewhat likely in October, up from 20.7% in September.
These households are reporting more large unplanned costs while more are trying to reduce their debt exposure. For lenders, that combination warrants attention to how an additional payment fits alongside existing obligations and efforts to preserve cash. Covering scheduled bills describes one part of these consumers’ finances; the growing incidence of unexpected expenses adds another claim on their budgets.
Among cardholders who said they were paying their balances in full less often than a year earlier, 9.2% named a large unexpected expense as the main reason. Routine costs were cited more frequently. Higher regular expenses accounted for 29.6% of responses, and another 27.5% said their regular expenses exceeded their income. The figures cover cardholders across financial groups who reported paying in full less often, including those who said they had difficulty keeping up with bills.
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