The Money Statistics May 2024

People in the UK owed £1,843.9 billion at the end of March 2024.

This is up by £12.35 million from £1,831.5 billion at the end of March 2023, an extra £230.25 per UK adult over the year.

The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £64,296.

Per adult this was £34,372, around 97.4% of average earnings. This is up from the revised £34,339 a month earlier.

Based on March 2024 numbers, the UK’s total interest payments on personal debt over a 12-month period would have been £75.23 billion, an average of £206 million per day.

The average annual interest per household would have been £2,649 and per person £1,420, 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 March 2024, outstanding consumer credit lending was £223.6 billion, increasing by £1.297 billion on the revised total for the previous month.

Within the total, outstanding credit card debt came to £70.3 billion, an increase of 8.2% in the year to March 2024. Credit card debt averaged £2,476 per household and £1,311 per adult.

A credit card on the average interest would take 26 years and 10 months to repay, making only the legal minimum repayments each month.

The minimum repayment in the first month would be £70 but would reduce each month. If £70 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 £1.7 billion in March 2024 or £584 million a day over revised figures for February 2024.

Net mortgage lending increased by £482 million in the month, while net consumer credit lending increased by £591 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 £3.43 a day on water, electricity and gas.

333 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 4 minutes and 20 seconds.

In Northern Ireland in the three months to April 2024, there were 7.9 insolvencies per day. In Scotland in the three months to March 2024 there were 20.7 insolvencies per day.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 1,192 debt issues every day in the year to April 2024.

9.5 properties were repossessed every day in January to March 2024 in the UK, or one every 2 hours and 30 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 232 per day in the twelve months to February 2024.

989 people a day reported they had become redundant in January to March 2024.

Net lending to individuals and housing associations in the UK increased by £584 million a day in March 2024.

Government debt increased by £521.9 million a day in the three months to April 2024.

Borrowers paid £206 million a day in interest in March 2024.

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.

56.9 mortgage possession claims and 34 mortgage possession orders were made every day in England and Wales in January to March 2024.

273.3 landlord possession claims and 199.5 landlord possession orders were made every day.