(Bloomberg) -- The pandemic brought a shift toward digital payments, but now it seems more and more consumers are turning back to cold hard cash to help budget during the cost-of-living crisis.

Britain’s Post Office, which has 2,700 ATM locations across the country, said its branches handled a record £801 million ($969.45 million) in cash withdrawals in July. That’s up almost 8% compared to June and 20% from the same period last year. 

According to the Post Office, this increase is due to consumers turning to cash to control their spending and more people staying in the UK for the summer holidays.

Households in the UK face bleak prospects as the Bank of England last week forecast that the nation would be in a recession for more than a year under the pressure of soaring inflation.

These estimates came the same day the Bank of England unleashed its biggest interest-rate hike since 1995 and predicted inflation would peak at more than 13% in October, eroding people’s spending power.

Post Office is the UK’s largest access to cash network with more branches than all the high street banks combined, the state-owned company said.

The amount of cash deposited and withdrawn also increased to £3.32 billion, the first time the monthly figure exceeded £3.3 billion in Post Office’s 360-year history.

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