Saving accounts will become more and more important as people struggle to balance their finances in the face of impending public sector cuts.

The government's announced budget cuts will no doubt usher in an age of austerity in addition to jobs cuts which make it even more necessary for people to save and prepare themselves for such as possibility.

Adrian Lowcock, senior investment advisor at Bestinvest, hoped that these dire propositions would motivate the average Briton to put away more money into his or her savings accounts.

He said: "That is going to raise concern about the future, but something like that should actually increase savings, because people who are concerned about it will be more likely to save, to prepare for their biggest fear - losing their employment."

However, recent findings made public by Nationwide paint a completely different picture. The Nationwide Building Society's Saving Index reflected that the mood of British savers was becoming increasingly pessimistic.

This new piece of research found that 21 per cent of the respondents did not expect to maintain their savings levels after six months. They predicted being able to put away significantly less money into their savings accounts. This reflected a rise in comparison to the figure last recorded in the previous quarter, when 18 per cent of savers confirmed the same.

The number of workers in Britain who saved regularly had also fallen by three percentage points to 46 per cent in comparison to the first quarter of 2010. In the meantime, the number of people who did not make any savings whatsoever also increased by two per cent to 22 per cent over the same time period.

These trends are especially worrying because a further piece of research, conducted by R3, found that more than two million people had had to borrow money in order to go on a holiday this year.