The Money Statistics December 2023

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

This is up by £22.5 billion from £1,842.0 billion at the end of October 2022, an extra £423 per UK adult over the year.

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

Per adult this was £34,716, around 100.7% of average earnings. This is down from the revised £34,698 a month earlier.

Based on October 2023 numbers, the UK’s total interest payments on personal debt over a 12-month period would have been £70,173 million, an average of £192 million per day.

The average annual interest per household would have been £2,499 and per person £1,319, 3.83% 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 October 2023, outstanding consumer credit lending was £219.4 billion, increasing by £962 million on the revised total for the previous month.

Within the total, outstanding credit card debt came to £67.9 billion, an increase of 8.5% in the year to October 2023. Credit card debt averaged £2,417 per household and £1,276 per adult.

A credit card on the average interest would take 26 years and 6 months to repay, making only the legal minimum repayments each month.

The minimum repayment in the first month would be £68 but would reduce each month. If £68 were paid every month, the debt would be cleared in 5 years.

Total net lending to individuals and housing associations by UK banks and building societies increased by £969 million in October 2023 or £31.3 million a day over revised figures for September 2023.

Net mortgage lending increased by £7 million in the month, while net consumer credit lending increased by £315 million.

In Q3 2023 lenders wrote off £737 million (of which £264 million was credit card debt, amounting to a daily write-off of £2.9 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.

279 people a day were declared insolvent or bankrupt in England or Wales in August to October 2023. This was equivalent to one person every 5 minutes and 9 seconds.

In Northern Ireland in October 2023, there were 4.0 insolvencies per day. In Scotland in the three months to June 2023 there were 22.3 insolvencies per day.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 1,083 debt issues every day in the year to November 2023.

6.8 properties were repossessed every day in July to September 2023 in the UK, or one every 3 hours and 47 minutes.

The number of UK mortgages with arrears of over 2.5% of the remaining balance increased by 37.0 a day in the year to September 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 £31.2 million a day in October 2023.

Government debt increased by £442 million a day in the three months to October 2023.

Borrowers paid £192 million a day in interest in October 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.

45.5 mortgage possession claims and 10.5 mortgage possession orders were made every day in England and Wales in July to September 2023.

271.1 landlord possession claims and 72.5 landlord possession orders were made every day.