The Money Statistics March 2024

People in the UK owed £1,838.7 billion at the end of January 2024.

This is up by £8.8 billion from £1,829.9 billion at the end of January 2023, an extra £165.39 per UK adult over the year.

The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £65,479.

Per adult this was £34,570, around 99.1% of average earnings. This is up from the revised £34,527 a month earlier.

Based on January 2024 numbers, the UK’s total interest payments on personal debt over a 12-month period would have been £73.597 billion, an average of £202 million per day.

The average annual interest per household would have been £2,621 and per person £1,384, 3.97% of average earnings.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s November 2023 forecast, household debt of all types is forecast to rise from £2,259 billion in 2023 to £2,429 billion in 2025.

This would make the average total household debt £85,274 (assuming household numbers track ONS population projections.)

At the end of January 2024, outstanding consumer credit lending was £221.3 billion, decreasing by £1.92 billion on the revised total for the previous month.

Within the total, outstanding credit card debt came to £69.6 billion, an increase of 8.8% in the year to January 2024. Credit card debt averaged £2,477 per household and £1,308 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 £69 but would reduce each month. If £69 were paid every month, the debt would be cleared in 4 years and 11 months.

Total net lending to individuals and housing associations by UK banks and building societies increased by £2.28 billion in January 2024 or £73 million a day over revised figures for December 2023.

Net mortgage lending increased by £354 million in the month, while net consumer credit lending increased by £656 million.

In Q4 2023 lenders wrote off £967 million (of which £263 million was credit card debt, amounting to a daily write-off of £3.23 million.)

The population of the UK grew by an estimated 1,584 people a day between mid-year 2021 and mid-year 2022.

On average, a UK household spends £3.48 a day on water, electricity and gas.

273 people a day were declared insolvent or bankrupt in England or Wales in November 2023 to January 2024. This was equivalent to one person every 5 minutes and 16 seconds.

In Northern Ireland in the three months to February 2024, there were 3.4 insolvencies per day. In Scotland in the three months to June 2023 there were 21.8 insolvencies per day.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 1,186 debt issues every day in the year to February 2024.

5.4 properties were repossessed every day in November 2023 to February 2024 in the UK, or one every 4 hours and 8 minutes.

The number of UK mortgages with arrears of over 2.5% of the remaining balance increased by 53.0 a day in the year to December 2023.

The number of people unemployed in the UK increased by 123 per day in the twelve months to January 2024.

1,445 people a day reported they had become redundant in October to December 2023.

Net lending to individuals and housing associations in the UK increased by £73 million a day in January 2024.

Government debt increased by £593.4 million a day in the three months to December 2023.

Borrowers paid £198 million a day in interest in December 2023.

It costs an average of £25.28 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 £33.54 per day.

47.7 mortgage possession claims and 29.4 mortgage possession orders were made every day in England and Wales in October to December 2023.

254.2 landlord possession claims and 195.7 landlord possession orders were made every day.