Consumer Mindset - September 2026
Core Research’s latest Mindset study, based on fieldwork with 1,000 adults every month is available as a PDF download above.
For the past two years, our data has told the same story. In behavioural science, it's known as the optimism gap. Put simply, it's: "I'm OK. It's the wider world I'm less sure about." We tend to feel better about the things that are part of our everyday lives, like our relationships, how we're feeling and whether we're making time for fun. It's the bigger picture that is harder to feel good about, from the economy to the challenges facing society.
In Ireland, that gap has been remarkably steady. For some time now, more people have expected the wider picture to get worse rather than better. Yet their outlook on their own lives has remained more positive, and that personal optimism has kept the overall score in positive territory.
That optimism acts as a kind of protective buffer. People can feel good about their own lives while keeping the bigger problems at arm's length. But a buffer like this depends on distance. What happens when those bigger problems start to feel closer to home?
This year, that distance may be starting to shrink. Since late February, the conflict in the Middle East has added another layer to the pressure on prices, most visibly through energy. For months, it was a story people followed on the news. Now it has moved from the headlines to the household bill. Home heating oil costs over 40% more than a year ago.
And the story that mattered most to people this month was that wholesale electricity prices had risen by 56% year on year. Less than a week after fieldwork closed, the CSO reported that the year-on-year increase had reached 77%. In August, the stories that stood out were local and everyday. In September, the top four were all about bills: electricity, fuel, food and rent.
Against this backdrop, our Direction Score has been at or just below zero for the third month in a row, standing at -3% this month. Last September, a similar late-summer dip bounced back to +11%. This year, it hasn’t.
The shift is less about how people see the wider picture, which remains broadly unchanged, and more about a softening in how they see their own lives. But that softening isn't showing up in how people are feeling day to day.
Happiness and enjoyment actually rose this month. Day to day, people seem to be doing just fine. What has changed is their confidence about where things are heading.
On some measures, concern is already running ahead of reality. Official figures published during our fieldwork showed food prices up just 0.1% on a year earlier, yet an ESRI forecast of higher food prices to come was among the most noticed stories this month. That suggests people aren't only reacting to what has happened. They're responding to what they expect to happen.
With cost-of-living concern back up at 58% and Budget 2027 around the corner, it would be tempting to connect the dots.
But our data has shown before that financial pressure doesn't automatically change how people feel about their own lives. So rather than draw that line now, we're leaving a few questions open for the months ahead.
Is this a short-term wobble, or the start of something more sustained?
If that sense of resilience starts to weaken, will it change what people want to hear?
Will practical, everyday, close-to-home messages begin to resonate more than bigger promises?
It’s too early to say. But these are the questions we’ll be watching as we head into winter, with Budget 2027 just around the corner.
