The Money Statistics February 2020

People in the UK owed £1,675 billion at the end of December 2019.

This is up by £48.8 billion from £1,627 billion at the end of December 2018, an extra £925 per UK adult over the year.

The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £60,213.

Per adult this was £31,766, around 112% of average earnings. This is up from a revised £31,667 a month earlier.

Based on December 2019 trends, the UK’s total interest payments on personal debt over a 12-month period would have been £50,864 million, an average of £139 million per day.

The average annual interest per household would have been £1,828 and per person £964, 3.4% of average earnings.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s March 2019 forecast, household debt is forecast to reach £2.425 trillion in 2023-24.

This would make the average household debt £86,388 (assuming household numbers track ONS population projections.)

At the end of December 2019, outstanding consumer credit lending was £224.1 billion, decreasing by £1.3 billion on the revised total for the previous month.

Within the total, outstanding credit card debt came to £72.2 billion, a decrease of 0.1% in the year to December. Credit card debt averaged £2,594 per household and £1,369 per adult.

A credit card on the average interest would take 26 years and 8 months to repay, making only the legal minimum repayments each month.

The minimum repayment in the first month would be £67 but would reduce each month. If £67 were paid every month, the debt would be cleared in around 5 years and 2 months.

Total net lending to individuals and housing associations by UK banks and building societies rose by £5.174 billion in December 2019 or £167 million a day over revised figures for November.

Net mortgage lending rose by £6.49 billion in the month, while net consumer credit lending fell by £1.317 billion.

In Q3 2019 lenders wrote off £1.123 billion (of which £347 million was credit card debt, amounting to a daily write-off of £3.8 million.)

The population of the UK grew by an estimated 1,083 people a day between 2017 and 2018.

On average, a UK household spends £3.92 a day on water, electricity and gas.

318 people a day were declared insolvent or bankrupt in October to December 2019. This was equivalent to one person every 4 minutes and 32 seconds.

In Northern Ireland, there were 7 insolvencies per day and in Scotland 36 insolvencies per day.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 2,617 debt issues every day in the year to January 2020.

14 properties were repossessed every day in Q4 2019 in England and Wales, or one every 1 hour and 40 minutes.

The number of UK mortgages with arrears of over 2.5% of the remaining balance fell by 18 a day.

The number of people unemployed in the UK fell by 200 per day in the year to December 2019.

1,185 people a day reported they had become redundant in October to December 2019.

Net lending to individuals and housing associations in the UK grew by £167 million a day in December 2019.

Government debt increased by £149.0 million a day in the year to December 2019.

Borrowers paid £139 million a day in interest in December 2019.

It costs an average of £22.92 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 £28.16 per day.

68 mortgage possession claims and 48 mortgage possession orders were made every day in England and Wales in October to December 2019.

277 landlord possession claims and 223 landlord possession orders were made every day.