The Money Statistics March 2016

£11.2 billion The government surplus in January

0.37% The record low average interest rate from an instant access savings account

1.41% Loans in arrears represented this proportion of the residential loan book

0.66% The average interest rate from an ISA

£231,843 The average cost of raising a child to 21 years old

3.7% The unemployment rate in the South West – the lowest in the UK

83 months The period of time the Bank of England base rate has been at 0.5%

5.935 million Employees are auto-enrolled to their pension

33% Of households owned their home outright

UK Personal Debt

People in the UK owed £1.460 trillion at the end of January 2016. This is up from £1.428 trillion at the end of  January 2015 – an extra £631.15 per UK adult.

The average total debt per household – including mortgages – was £54,080 in January. The revised figure for December was £53,910.

Per adult in the UK that’s an average debt of £28,913 in January – around 111.9% of average earnings. This is slightly up from a revised £28,822 a month earlier.

Based on December* 2015 trends, the UK’s total interest repayments on personal debt over a 12 month period would have been £52.371 billion.

  • That’s an average of £143 million per day.
  • This means that households in the UK would have paid an average of £1,940 in annual interest repayments. Per person that’s £1,037 4.03% of average earnings.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s July 2015 forecast, household debt is predicted to reach £2.551 trillion in Q1 2021. This makes the average household debt £94,481 (assuming that the number of households in the UK remained the same between now and Q1 2021).

Outstanding consumer credit lending was £179.49 billion at the end of January 2016.

  • This is up from £171.41 billion at the end of January 2015, and is an increase of £159.86 for every adult in the UK.

Per household, that’s an average consumer credit debt of £6,648 in January up from a revised £6,621 in December – or £299 extra per household over the year.

It also means the average consumer credit borrowing stood at £3,554 per UK adult. This is up from a revised £3,540 in December.

Total credit card debt in January 2015 was £63.82bn. Per household this is £2,364 – for a credit card bearing the average interest, it would take 25 years and 5 months to repay if you made only the minimum repayment each month.

  • The minimum repayment in the first month would be £56 but reduces each month. If you paid £56 every month, the debt would be cleared in around 5 years and 5 months.

Total net lending to individuals by UK banks and building societies rose by £5.3 billion in January 2016 – or £171m a day.

  • Net mortgage lending rose by £3.7 billion in the month; net consumer credit lending rose by £1.6 billion.

UK Banks and Building Societies wrote off £3.175 billion of loans to individuals over the four quarters to Q4 2015.

  • In Q4 2015 itself they wrote off  £1,046 million (of which £356 million was credit card debt) amounting to a daily write-off of £11.4 million.

There were 20,404 individual insolvencies in England and Wales in Q4 2015. This is equivalent to 222 people a day or, one person every 6 minutes 13seconds. This was up 3.6% on the previous quarter but down 10.5% on  the same period a year ago.

Every day, on average, 40 people were made bankrupt, 71 Debt Relief Orders were granted, and 111 Individual Voluntary Arrangements were entered into.

In the 12 months ending Q4 2015, 1 in 632 adults (just under 0.16% of the adult population) became insolvent. This was the lowest rate in a decade.

2,102 Consumer County Court Judgements (CCJs) were issued every day in the year to Q4 2015. The average value of a Consumer CCJ in Q4 2015 was £2,030.

Everyday in the UK

The population of the UK grew by an estimated 1,223 people a day between 2003 and 2013.

On average, a UK household spends £3.78 a day on water, electricity and gas.

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

37.8 million plastic card purchase transactions were made every day in December 2015, with a total value of £1.71 billion.

7.8m cash machine transactions were made every day in November with a value of £305m.

2,102 Consumer County Court Judgments (CCJs) are issued every day, with an average value of £2,030.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 4,097 new debt problems every day during the quarter ending September 2015.

25 properties are repossessed every day, or one every 57 min 40 seconds.

The number of mortgages with arrears of over 2.5% of the remaining balance fell by 35 a day.

The number of people unemployed for over 12 months fell by 400 per day between October and December.

1,065 people a day reported they had become redundant between October and December.

Net lending to individuals in the UK increased by £171 million a day.

The Government had a surplus of £361m a day during December 2015 (£4,182 per second).

Borrowers would repay £143m a day in interest over a year, based on December 2015 trends.

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

54 mortgage possession claims and 37 mortgage possession orders are made every day.

420 landlord possession claims and 317 landlord possession orders are made every day.