The Money Statistics October 2023

People in the UK owed £1,846.5 billion at the end of August 2023.

This is up by £35.1 billion from £1,811.4 billion at the end of August 2022, an extra £660 per UK adult over the year.

The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £65,756.

Per adult this was £34,716, around 100.4% of average earnings. This is down from the revised £34,668 a month earlier.

Based on August 2023 numbers, the UK’s total interest payments on personal debt over a 12-month period would have been £67,313 million, an average of £184 million per day.

The average annual interest per household would have been £2,397 and per person £1,266, 3.66% of average earnings.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s March 2023 forecast, household debt of all types is forecast to rise from £2,333 billion in 2023 to £2,478 billion in 2025.

This would make the average total household debt £86,994 (assuming household numbers track ONS population projections.)

At the end of August 2023, outstanding consumer credit lending was £217.4 billion, increasing by £1.3 billion on the revised total for the previous month.

Within the total, outstanding credit card debt came to £67.3 billion, an increase of 8.00% in the year to August 2023. Credit card debt averaged £2,394 per household and £1,264 per adult.

A credit card on the average interest would take 26 years and 5 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 4 years and 11 months.

Total net lending to individuals and housing associations by UK banks and building societies increased by £2.6 billion in August 2023 or £83 million a day over revised figures for July 2023.

Net mortgage lending increased by £1.3 billion in the month, while net consumer credit lending increased by £490 million.

In Q2 2023 lenders wrote off £710 million (of which £282 million was credit card debt, amounting to a daily write-off of £3.1 million.)

The population of the UK shrunk by an estimated 151 people a day between 2020 and 2021.

On average, a UK household spends £4.17 a day on water, electricity and gas.

262 people a day were declared insolvent or bankrupt in England or Wales in July to September 2023. This was equivalent to one person every 5 minutes and 30 seconds.

In Northern Ireland in July 2023, there were 4.2 insolvencies per day. In Scotland in the three months to March 2023 there were 21.2 insolvencies per day.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 1,055 debt issues every day in the year to August 2023.

6.7 properties were repossessed every day in April to June 2023 in the UK, or one every 3 hours and 35 minutes.

The number of UK mortgages with arrears of over 2.5% of the remaining balance increased by 20.5 a day in the year to June 2023.

The number of people unemployed in the UK increased by 658 per day in the twelve months to July 2023.

1,109 people a day reported they had become redundant in May to July 2023.

Net lending to individuals and housing associations in the UK grew by £83 million a day in August 2023.

Government debt increased by £311 million a day in the three months to September 2023.

Borrowers paid £184 million a day in interest in August 2023.

It costs an average of £24.44 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 £29.50 per day.

43.8 mortgage possession claims and 8.6 mortgage possession orders were made every day in England and Wales in April to June 2023.

247.7 landlord possession claims and 62.2 landlord possession orders were made every day.