The Money Statistics December 2021

People in the UK owed £1,749.9 billion at the end of October 2021.

This is up by £60.1 billion from £1,689.8 billion at the end of October 2020, an extra £1,136 per UK adult over the year.

The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £62,965.

Per adult this was £33,086, around 108.3% of average earnings. This is up from the revised £33,073 a month earlier.

Based on October 2021 numbers, the UK’s total interest payments on personal debt over a 12-month period would have been £44,445 million, an average of £122 million per day.

The average annual interest per household would have been £1,599 and per person £840, 2.75% of average earnings.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s October 2021 forecast, household debt of all types is forecast to rise from £2,004 billion in 2020 to £2,363 billion in 2025.

This would make the average total household debt £82,957 (assuming household numbers track ONS population projections).

At the end of October 2021, outstanding consumer credit lending was £196.4 billion, falling by £1.8 billion on the revised total for the previous month.

Within the total, outstanding credit card debt came to £57.9 billion, a decrease of 3.7% in the year to October 2021. Credit card debt averaged £2,085 per household and £1,096 per adult.

A credit card on the average interest would take 25 years and 0 months to repay, making only the legal minimum repayments each month.

The minimum repayment in the first month would be £55 but would reduce each month. If £55 were paid every month, the debt would be cleared in around 5 years and 1 month.

Total net lending to individuals and housing associations by UK banks and building societies grew by £708 million in October 2021 or £22.8 million a day over revised figures for September 2021.

Net mortgage lending rose by £2.51 billion in the month, while net consumer credit lending fell by £1.81 billion.

In Q3 2021 lenders wrote off £982 million (of which £335 million was credit card debt, amounting to a daily write-off of £3.6 million.)

The population of the UK grew by an estimated 777 people a day between 2019 and 2020.

On average, a UK household spends £4.33 a day on water, electricity and gas.

313 people a day were declared insolvent or bankrupt in England or Wales in August to October 2021. This was equivalent to one person every 4 minutes and 37 seconds.

In Northern Ireland in October 2021, there were 3.3 insolvencies per day. In Scotland in the three months to September 2021 there were 20.8 insolvencies per day.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 1,940 debt issues every day in the year to November 2021.

4.5 properties were repossessed every day in July to September 2021 in the UK, or one every 5 hours and 23 minutes.

The number of UK mortgages with arrears of over 2.5% of the remaining balance fell by 1.8 a day in the year to September 2021.

The number of people unemployed in the UK fell by 808 per day in the twelve months to October 2021.

1,054 people a day reported they had become redundant in August to October 2021.

Net lending to individuals and housing associations in the UK grew by £22.8 million a day in October 2021.

Government debt increased by £429 million a day in the year to October 2021.

Borrowers paid £122 million a day in interest in October 2021.

It costs an average of £23.25 per day for a couple to raise a child from birth to the age of 18.

For a lone parent family, the cost of raising a child comes to £28.22 per day.

30.8 mortgage possession claims and 13.4 mortgage possession orders were made every day in England and Wales in July to September 2021.

111 landlord possession claims and 60.9 landlord possession orders were made every day.