Financial Lives January 2023: Consumer experience of the rising cost of living – the burden of bills and ways to get support.
The FCA have provided some selected statistics in their research note from their Financial Lives cost of living (Jan 2023) recontact survey, to give an insight into the financial situation UK adults experienced over the 6 months to January 2023.
Their summary findings include:
The number of adults who missed payments on any domestic bills or meeting any of their credit commitments in 3 or more of the previous 6 months went up by 1.4 million: from 4.2 million (8%) in May 2022 to 5.6 million (11%) in January 2023.
The number of people who felt that making these kinds of payments was a heavy burden jumped from 7.8 million (15%) to 10.9 million (21%).
That 29% of UK adults with a mortgage and 34% of renters experienced payment increases in the 6 months to January 2023.
Of UK adults who were insurance or protection policyholders in May 2022, 8% cancelled one or more of their policies, and 7% reduced the level of cover on one or more their policies – in the 6 months to January 2023, specifically to save money due to the rising cost of living. As some policyholders did both (cancelled and reduced cover), this means that 13% of May 2022 policyholders (or 6.2m people) cancelled and/or reduced cover.
The toll on mental wellbeing was considerable, they found that just over 1 in 2 UK adults, or 28.4 million people, were more anxious or stressed due to the rising cost of living.
You can access the full report here
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