Credit Cards & Loans
Majority of Brits write off debts under £20k as not ‘serious’
Anything under £20,000 is not considered ‘serious debt’ by the majority of Britons, according to findings of a new survey.
In a bid to find out more about the attitudes of Britons towards debt and borrowing money, a poll conducted by MyVoucherCodes.co.uk revealed that the majority of Brits only consider an amount to be ‘serious debt’ when it reaches £20,000 or above, and this is not including any mortgage debt.
Initially, respondents were asked to state the amount they felt a debt could get to before they considered it to be a serious or worrying amount of money to owe. In response to this, the most common amount selected by respondents was ‘£20,000+’, with 57% of people agreeing that this was ‘serious debt’, but not below this amount.
The poll asked people not to take into account debt incurred through a mortgage, which was to be kept separate from the findings.
When asked if they were currently in debt of any kind, excluding money owned through a mortgage or student loan, 79% of all the respondents taking part said ‘yes’.
When asked how they got into debt, 11% admitted it was probably down to ‘general careless spending’. 26% said it was ‘holidays’ that had caused them to go into debt, but the majority, 42%, said it was because they struggled to keep up with bills.
Mark Pearson, chairman of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, said: “It’s vital that any amount of debt, not matter how large or small, is considered to be serious. Owing money is never ideal and although it’s often unavoidable where things like mortgages and student loans are concerned, other debt is easily avoided.
“As long as someone is living within their means and taking every care not to spend more than they have, debt doesn’t have to be something you have to live with. Unfortunately, too many people now have the attitude that debt is ‘normal’ and OK, but it really isn’t.”
A worrying number of those surveyed also said that they think they will always be in debt (86%), and 57% admitted they had no plan in place to try and clear the debts they had built up.
When asked what form most of their debts had taken, the most common answer was ‘credit card’ debt (44%), followed by an overdraft (28%).
However, 9% admitted most of their debts were from payday loans and 4% claimed it was from borrowing money from friends and/or family.
