The Money Statistics October 2021

People in the UK owed £1,745.7 billion at the end of August 2021.

This is up by £64.1 billion from £1,681.6 billion at the end of August 2020, an extra £1,212 per UK adult over the year.

The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £62,813.

Per adult this was £33,006, around 108.9% of average earnings. This is similar to the revised £32,918 a month earlier.

Based on August 2021 numbers, the UK’s total interest payments on personal debt over a 12-month period would have been £44,749 million, an average of £123 million per day.

The average annual interest per household would have been £1,610 and per person £846, 2.79% of average earnings.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s March 2021 forecast, household debt of all types is forecast to rise from £2,006 billion in 2020 to £2,354 billion in 2025.

This would make the average household debt £82,641 (assuming household numbers track ONS population projections).

At the end of August 2021, outstanding consumer credit lending was £197.6 billion, falling by £65 million on the revised total for the previous month.

Within the total, outstanding credit card debt came to £56.5 billion, a decrease of 8.4% in the year to August 2021. Credit card debt averaged £2,033 per household and £1,068 per adult.

A credit card on the average interest would take 24 years and 9 months to repay, making only the legal minimum repayments each month.

The minimum repayment in the first month would be £53 but would reduce each month. If £53 were paid every month, the debt would be cleared in around 5 years and 1 month.

Total net lending to individuals and housing associations by UK banks and building societies grew by £4.7 billion in August 2021 or £150.0 million a day over revised figures for July 2021.

Net mortgage lending rose by £4.72 billion in the month, while net consumer credit lending fell by £65 million.

In Q2 2021 lenders wrote off £958 million (of which £366 million was credit card debt, amounting to a daily write-off of £4.0 million.)

The population of the UK grew by an estimated 777 people a day between 2019 and 2020.

On average, a UK household spends £4.33 a day on water, electricity and gas.

306 people a day were declared insolvent or bankrupt in England or Wales in July to September 2021. This was equivalent to one person every 4 minutes and 42 seconds.

In Northern Ireland in September 2021, there were 4.1 insolvencies per day. In Scotland in the three months to June 2021 there were 20.7 insolvencies per day.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 1,906 debt issues every day in the year to September 2021.

2.3 properties were repossessed every day in April to June 2021 in the UK, or one every 10 hours and 24 minutes.

The number of UK mortgages with arrears of over 2.5% of the remaining balance rose by 4 a day in the year to June 2021.

The number of people unemployed in the UK fell by 90 per day in the twelve months to August 2021.

1,076 people a day reported they had become redundant in June to August 2021.

Net lending to individuals and housing associations in the UK grew by £150 million a day in August 2021.

Government debt increased by £437 million a day in the year to September 2021.

Borrowers paid £123 million a day in interest in August 2021.

It costs an average of £23.25 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 £28.22 per day.

27.5 mortgage possession claims and 3.0 mortgage possession orders were made every day in England and Wales in April to June 2021.

77 landlord possession claims and 49.5 landlord possession orders were made every day.