People are not helping themselves

geneer

Cleaver wrote: »

I've said this before on here, but I'm always astounded at how low this figure is.

Why? Its an average. Of every household in Britain.

Maybe interesting when monitored over time.

But in and of itself pretty much meaningless.

chucknorris

PasturesNew wrote: »

Because one day it'll go up - and you'll spend the rest of your life wishing you had.

I don't think so with the almost covering funds currently invested elsewhere (mostly in very safe, but boring fixed rate bonds from various banks and building societies). Although I am now currently investing more into the FTSE as I am playing far too safe and actually losing the battle against inflation.

Anyway apart from that the house I live in is mortgage free, it's only my investment properties that are mortgaged and they are very profitable having a gearing at only an average of around 33%.

Butti

PasturesNew wrote: »

Because one day it'll go up - and you'll spend the rest of your life wishing you had.

......and regardless of who you listen to (apart from the Government, who seem strangely silent on this) it can't be too long before it goes up. November maybe? The end of the year?

B

DSM

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I'm with Cleaver on this one.

It's amazing that debt is so low..... Really puts the doomers tedious wailing into perspective.

Not often I comment but feel I can add some reasoning that is often missed when "fighting ones corner" on this board between the regulars.

It's all about perception and how YOU see it from your viewpoint.

£15k might seem like small fry for you, your family or even your circle of friends, £8k even less so but for a hell of a lot of people, that is simply a lot of money! and money people just do not have. £15k is probably an average annual semi-skilled wage round these parts! With rising costs all round what little is left over from general living costs is getting less and less to service said debt.

Unfortunately with no wage rises in the lower paid semi-skilled/unskilled sectors, the finish line is simply getting further and further away for those who can least afford it even in these so called 'favourable times' :rotfl:.

If you have ever lived on the breadline, your value of money becomes much greater. I don't wish to sound condacending if thats the correct word to use however it would be my opinion that 99.9% who frequent this board have not, yourself included. There are one or two who you feel have and their viewpoint is often quite refreshing and respected (by me at least!), and it is a real shame that this forum isn't better represented by this "class" of person for a more balanced view.

If you have, then I do sincerely apologise but i would hazzard a guess this not to be the case because I'm confident your angle would be different from your current standing if you had.

ukcarper

The unsecured dept does seem high to me but the mortgage dept does seem low compared to average house price. It would be interesting to see what the average mortgage dept was for mortgage holders.

Pimperne1

This:

"Meanwhile, the average household debt in the UK is now £8,121 - excluding mortgages. This figure increases to £15,618 if the average is based on the number of households who actually have some form of unsecured loan".

Doesn't really make sense.

Would it not read better if it were:

"Meanwhile, the average household debt in the UK is now £15,618 - excluding mortgages. This figure, however, reduces to £8,121 if the average is based on the number of households who don't actually have some form of unsecured loan".

Cleaver

Wookster wrote: »

We have one of the highest private debt: GDP in the world.

As a genuine question, as I'm a bit dumb when it comes to this type of thing, why would GDP be something that measure household debt against? I understand measuring it against income to give you some idea, but not GDP.

I dunno. I did a bit of Googling after reading Graham's post and it looks like Britiain is right up there with high debt whatever source you look at, so we are a very indebted nation. It's just that if you asked me before I knew what the average UK household debt was including mortgages I would have gone way, way over £55,000. I guess that's just my ignorance though.

I know you could never do this, but I'd like to see something around how manageable it all is. If you see what I mean?

We have a household debt that is double our gross income each year. So around 196% household debt to income ration if I've done my calculation right, and that sounds awful. But if we sold all our assets, investments and cashed in our savings tomorrow we'd have a good few times our income in cash. Which then sounds a very healthy position to be in.

I dunno, I'm just confused as to what this stat means to me I guess.

Graham_Devon

Cleaver wrote: »

We have a household debt that is double our gross income each year. So around 196% household debt to income ration if I've done my calculation right, and that sounds awful. But if we sold all our assets, investments and cashed in our savings tomorrow we'd have a good few times our income in cash. Which then sounds a very healthy position to be in.

Who would you sell it to?

We've all just been selling it to each other, for a higher price each time.

Pimperne1

Cleaver wrote: »

As a genuine question, as I'm a bit dumb when it comes to this type of thing, why would GDP be something that measure household debt against? I understand measuring it against income to give you some idea, but not GDP.

I dunno. I did a bit of Googling after reading Graham's post and it looks like Britiain is right up there with high debt whatever source you look at, so we are a very indebted nation. It's just that if you asked me before I knew what the average UK household debt was including mortgages I would have gone way, way over £55,000. I guess that's just my ignorance though.

I know you could never do this, but I'd like to see something around how manageable it all is. If you see what I mean?

We have a household debt that is double our gross income each year. So around 196% household debt to income ration if I've done my calculation right, and that sounds awful. But if we sold all our assets, investments and cashed in our savings tomorrow we'd have a good few times our income in cash. Which then sounds a very healthy position to be in.

I dunno, I'm just confused as to what this stat means to me I guess.

Part of the problem could be that only about 70% (or is it less now?) are owner occupiers so 30% don't have any mortgage debt. Further, I wouldn't be surprised if there are not a very large number of home owners out there who have no mortgage at all (so I would say the number of people who have mortgages is probably less than 50% of households.

Dave101t

oh they are helping themselves....to the benefit lifestyle!