3 in 10 People Have Zero or Less Than £1,000 Savings

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today published its latest “Financial Lives” survey and found that whilst people with low financial resilience has not worsened during the ‘cost of living crisis’ neither has it improved.  As a snapshot of the population, 18,000 people were interviewed and the findings are sad to read:

• 1 in 10 have no savings
• 2 in 10 have savings but less than £1,000
• The above two equate to 13 million adults in the UK with little or no savings
• 12 million people are stressed about their financial and debt situation.
• Nearly 4 million people are worried about having no money in retirement.

Younger Adults

As you may expect, younger adults have a greater proportion of debt with car finance, student loans and even mortgages.

• The FCA estimates that the average debt for 18-34 years is £12,500.
• Happily, this falls just over £1,300 when student loans are ignored.
• That said, is this because younger people cannot access more credit as easy as older adults?

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL)

The FCA alsp raised concerns about the number of people now using deferred payment options, i.e., have it now and worry about paying for it later.

• 11 million people have used BNPL isn the last 12 months
• This is a worrying trend in that it is 3 million higher than the last survey 3 years ago.

Comment

Many of us have fallen into debt at some point, be it car finance, student loans, getting divorced, single parenting, losing our jobs or even just living beyond our means.

If you are worried about your dent position, there are a number of free advice sources that may be able to help you:

• Citizens Advice Bureau https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/
• National Debtline https://nationaldebtline.org/
• There are also many charitable organisations that offer debt counselling.