£26,468 The average annual salary in the UK, including bonuses
£2.04 billion The spending every day on plastic cards in the UK
126 Purchases were made every second using credit cards in March
2.3% The rate of inflation in March
0.4% The fall in house prices in April, according to Halifax
£120,230 The average outstanding mortgage for the 11.1 million households with mortgages in March
547,711 The number of issues dealt with by Citizens Advice Bureaux in March
28% Of the issues CABs handle are related to debt
£2,504 The average credit card debt per household in March
UK Personal Debt
People in the UK owed £1.529 trillion at the end of March 2017. This is up from £1.484 trillion at the end of March 2016 – an extra £886.84 per UK adult.
The average total debt per household – including mortgages – was £56,632 in March. The revised figure for February was £56,448.
Per adult in the UK that’s an average debt of £30,277 in March– around 114.5% of average earnings. This is slightly up from a revised £30,179 a month earlier.
Based on March 2017 trends, the UK’s total interest repayments on personal debt over a 12 month period would have been£50.183 billion.
- That’s an average of £137 million per day.
- This means that households in the UK would have paid an average of £1,859 in annual interest repayments. Per person that’s £994 – 3.74% of average earnings.
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s March 2017 forecast, household debt is predicted to reach £2.322 trillion in Q1 2022. This makes the average household debt £86,001 (assuming that the number of households in the UK remained the same between now and then).
Outstanding consumer credit lending was £197.4 billion at the end of March 2017.
- This is up from £182.8 billion at the end of March 2016, and is an increase of £288.31 for every adult in the UK.
Per household, that’s an average consumer credit debt of £7,311 in March, up from a revised £7,263 in February– and £539.26 extra per household over the year.
It also means the average consumer credit borrowing stood at £3,909 per UK adult. This is up from a revised £3,883 in February.
Total credit card debt in March 2017 was £67.6bn. Per household this is £2,504 – for a credit card bearing the average interest, it would take 25 years and 11 months to repay if you made only the minimum repayment each month.
- The minimum repayment in the first month would be £60 but reduces each month. If you paid £60 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 £4.7 billion in March 2017 – or £156m a day.
- Net mortgage lending rose by £3.1 billion in the month; net consumer credit lending rose by £1.6 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 Advice Bureaux across England and Wales dealt with 547,711 issues in March 2017.
Debt was the second largest advice category (behind benefits and tax credits) with 150,995 issues. This is 12% up on the same month last year. Debt issues represented 28% of all problems dealt with over the period.
Based on figures for March 2017, Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales are dealing with 5,033 debt problems everyday.
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 £3.61 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.
47.8 million plastic card purchase transactions were made every day in March 2017, with a total value of £2.043 billion.
3,321 Consumer County Court Judgments (CCJs) are issued every day, with an average value of £1,495.
Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 5,033 new debt problems every day during March 2017.
15 properties 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 386 per day between December and February.
1,178 people a day reported they had become redundant between December and February.
Net lending to individuals in the UK increased by £156 million a day.
The Government debt grew by £170m a day during February 2017 (£1,968 per second).
Borrowers would repay £137 a day in interest over a year, based on March 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.