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The Money Charity have released the debt statistics for March 2024 highlighting that although there seems to be positive signs of economic improvement, we should not expect the costs to lessen at home.
Snapshot of UK debt March 2024
- The inflation rate has decreased to 3.4% from 4%. As we have said before, this does not mean that things are decreasing in price – it means that things are not increasing in price by as much
- Petrol has increased by 5.5 pence per litre in February
- Average credit card debt per household stood at £1,308 in January
- The average total debt per household is £65,479 in January which is a significant increase from the end of last year
- Total unsecured debt stands at £4,161 per adult in January
- 1% decrease in the average first time buyer house price to the year to January 2024
UK Personal Debt
Remember that you can view the statistics from last month here in order to compare with the March 2024 debt statistics.
- The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £65,479 or £34,570 per adult. This is around 99.1% of average earnings
- 273 people per day were declared bankrupt or insolvent in England and Wales from November 2023 to January 2024. This equates to one person every 5 minutes and 16 seconds
- The Citizens Advice Bureau dealt with 1,186 debt issues every day in the year to February 2024
- 5.4 properties were repossessed every day in November to January, which was one every 4 hours and 8 minutes
- 1,445 people a day reported they had become redundant between October and December
- Government debt increased by £593.4 million per day in the three months to December 2023
- The number of people unemployed increased by 123 per day in the year to January 2024
If you are able to read the full statistical report, you will see that although there are some green shoots beginning to be seen within the economy, overall we are still looking at a bleak picture. With official figures released only a few days ago, showing that the UK ended 2023 in a shallow recession, we have the proof that households are significantly cutting back and do not have the disposable income to put back into the economy.
There are signs of increasing wages and falling inflation, but this is not enough to garner momentum against the cost of living crisis that the UK has lived under for the past couple of years. UK households are under pressure. StepChange has recently reported that 43% of their clients were in full-time employment. We would agree with this at UKDS. Being in debt is no longer described as the stereotypical out of work, addiction ladled, uneducated individual of bygone days. Debt does not discriminate and we are seeing clients who would not normally be in a debt position, coming through our phone lines in dire need of help.
Cost factors such as nursery and rent do not help matters. The average cost for sending a child under the age of two to full time nursery is around £14,000 per year. Housing rents average about 26% of the median monthly income in England. This is unsustainable and whilst the Government have announced changes to childcare, in practice this is difficult due to the support and funding available.
The British Chamber of Commerce has predicted some growth but with slow momentum and a general election on the horizon, it looks fragile. This will not give much confidence in UK households to stop their current practice of watching the pennies and it looks like they will still be feeling the squeeze this year.
If last year had a negative impact on your financial situation and you are worried about your debt situation this year, feel free to call us for a discussion on what debt solutions could be available to suit your personal situation.
