TORONTO - A new survey suggests Canadians contributed less to their tax-free savings accounts last year, mostly because they didn't have enough money to invest.

The Bank of Montreal's annual TFSA survey found respondents contributed an average of $4,592 into their accounts last year - $939 less than the year before.

Forty-three per cent indicated that drop was due to a lack of funds, while 36 per cent said they required the cash for other expenses.

Respondents estimated they would contribute even less this year, estimating an average of $4,325.

Pollara conducted the online survey of 1,500 adults polled between Dec. 14 and 19 last year on behalf of BMO.

The polling industry's professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.