The Money Statistics May 2019

26 years and 9 months Time to pay off average credit card debt making only the minimum payment per month

19.87% Average credit card interest rate in April 2019

£2,655 Average credit card debt per household in March 2019

0.90% Average interest rate on a cash ISA in March 2019

£59,540 Average total debt per UK household in March 2019

0.4% Average increase in house prices in the year to April 2019, according to Nationwide

-6.1% Change in the average real wage since pre-crash peak in February 2008

£6.18 billion Public sector net borrowing (excluding RBS and Bank of England) in the three months to April 2019

2.1% Increase in Consumer Prices Index in the year to April 2019

UK Personal Debt

People in the UK owed £1,633 billion at the end of March 2019.

This is up from £1,588 billion at the end of March 2018, an extra £825.40 per UK adult over the year.

The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £59,540.

Per adult this was £31,142, around 113.1% of average earnings. This is up from a revised £31,055 a month earlier.

Based on March 2019 trends, the UK’s total interest payments on personal debt over a 12-month period would have been £50,731 million, an average of £139 million per day.

The average annual interest per household would have been £1,850 and per person £9683.5% 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 March 2019, outstanding consumer credit lending was £216.7 billion, increasing by £268 million on the revised total for the previous month.

Within the total, outstanding credit card debt came to £72.8 billion, an average of £2,655 per household £1,389 per adult.

A credit card on the average interest would take 26 years and 9 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 3 months.

Total net lending to individuals and housing associations by UK banks and building societies rose by £4.53 billion in March 2019 or £146 million a day.

Net mortgage lending rose by £4.264 billion in the month; net consumer credit lending rose by £0.268 billion.

In Q4 2018 lenders wrote off £1.004 billion (of which £488 million was credit card debt, amounting to a daily write-off of £5.3 million.)

Everyday in the UK

The population of the UK grew by an estimated 1,166 people a day between 2017 and 2018.

On average, a UK household spends £4.05 a day on water, electricity and gas.

350 people a day were declared insolvent or bankrupt in January to March 2019. This was equivalent to one person every 4 minutes and 7 seconds.

3,567 Consumer County Court Judgements (CCJs) were issued every day in England and Wales in Q1 2019, with an average value of £1,398.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England, Wales and Northern Ireland dealt with 2,518 debt issues every day in the year to April 2019.

15 properties were repossessed every day in Q1 2019, or one every 1 hour and 34 minutes.

The number of mortgages with arrears of over 2.5% of the remaining balance fell by 8 a day.

The number of people unemployed fell by 326 per day in the year to March 2019.

1,022 people a day reported they had become redundant in January to March 2019.

Net lending to individuals and housing associations in the UK grew by £146 million a day in March 2019.

Government debt increased by £73.7 million a day in the year to April 2019.

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

It costs an average of £22.95 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 £27.90 per day.

68 mortgage possession claims and 48 mortgage possession orders were made every day in January to March 2019.

337 landlord possession claims and 263 landlord possession orders were made every day.