The Money Statistics March 2017

£9.4 billion The government's surplus in January

34% The proportion of households who own homes outright in England

29% The proportion of households who own homes with a mortgage in England

£50.225 billion Would be spent on paying private debt interest over a year, at January 2017 rates

2.7% The rise in rents in the year to February 2017

0.13% January’s average interest rate for an instant access savings account – excluding bonuses

349% The multiple of average income borrowed by the average first time buyer in December 2016

41% The average percentage of their income that private renters pay in rent

18% The average percentage of their income that mortgagors pay to their mortgage

UK Personal Debt

People in the UK owed £1.52 trillion at the end of January 2017. This is up from £1.471 trillion at the end of December 2015 – an extra £972.41 per UK adult.

The average total debt per household – including mortgages – was £56,310 in January. The revised figure for December was £56,148.

Per adult in the UK that’s an average debt of £30,105 in January – around 113.6% of average earnings. This is slightly up from a revised £30,019 a month earlier.

Based on January 2017 trends, the UK’s total interest repayments on personal debt over a 12 month period would have been£50.225 billion.

  • That’s an average of £138 million per day.
  • This means that households in the UK would have paid an average of £1,860 in annual interest repayments. Per person that’s £995 3.76% of average earnings.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s November 2016 forecast, household debt is predicted to reach £2.294 trillion in Q1 2022. This makes the average household debt £84,964 (assuming that the number of households in the UK remained the same between now and then).

Outstanding consumer credit lending was £194 billion at the end of January 2017.

  • This is up from £180 billion at the end of January 2016, and is an increase of £269.89 for every adult in the UK.

Per household, that’s an average consumer credit debt of £7,185 in January, up from a revised £7,146 in December – and  £504.81 extra per household over the year.

It also means the average consumer credit borrowing stood at £3,841 per UK adult. This is up from a revised £3,821 in December.

Total credit card debt in January 2017 was £66.7bn. Per household this is £2,470 – for a credit card bearing the average interest, it would take 25 years and 10 months to repay if you made only the minimum repayment each month.

  • The minimum repayment in the first month would be £59 but reduces each month. If you paid £59 every month, the debt would be cleared in around 5 years and 4 months.

Total net lending to individuals by UK banks and building societies rose by £4.8 billion in January 2017 – or £154m a day.

  • Net mortgage lending rose by £3.4 billion in the month; net consumer credit lending rose by £1.4 billion.
  • In Q4 itself they wrote off  £640 million (of which £394 million was credit card debt) amounting to a daily write-off of £7 million.

Citizens AdviceBureaux across England and Wales dealt with 612,209 new enquiries in the three months between July and September 2016.

Debt was the second largest advice category (behind Benefits) with 366,000  issues. This unchanged on the same period last year. Debt issues represented 26% of all problems dealt with over the period.

Based on quarterly figures up to the end of September 2016, Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales are dealing with 4,022 debt problems every working day.

  • CAB cite the loss of legal aid and falling trends in many individual debt types for the reduction in debt advice cases.

There were 22,852 individual insolvencies in England and Wales in Q4 2016. This is equivalent to 248 people a day or, one person every 6 minutes 13 seconds. This was down 4% on the previous quarter and up 10% on  the same period a year ago.

Every day, on average, 41 people were made bankrupt, 68 Debt Relief Orders were granted, and 139 Individual Voluntary Arrangements were entered into.

Everyday in the UK

The population of the UK grew by an estimated 1,286 people a day between 2014 and 2015.

On average, a UK household spends £3.25 a day on water, electricity and gas.

248 people a day are declared insolvent or bankrupt. This is equivalent to one person every 6 minutes 13 seconds.

42 million plastic card purchase transactions were made every day in December 2016, with a total value of £1.823 billion.

2799 Consumer County Court Judgments (CCJs) are issued every day, with an average value of £1,711.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 4,022 new debt problems every day during the quarter ending June 2016.

1properties are repossessed every day, or one every one hour and 34 minutes.

The number of mortgages with arrears of over 2.5% of the remaining balance fell by 21 a day.

The number of people unemployed for over 12 months fell by 266 per day October and December.

1,315 people a day reported they had become redundant between October and December.

Net lending to individuals in the UK increased by £154 million a day.

The Government debt shrank by £303m a day during January 2016 (£3,510 per second).

Borrowers would repay £138 a day in interest over a year, based on January 2017 trends.

It costs an average of £30.23 per day to raise a child from birth to the age of 21.

52 mortgage possession claims and 32 mortgage possession orders are made every day.

336 landlord possession claims and 268 landlord possession orders are made every day.