How much do you owe after this Christmas?

Good feature in yesterday's Independent looking at the scale of personal debt in the UK.

Apparently 2/3rd of the EU's credit card debt is British, and collectively we owe a staggering £1.13 trillion - 1/5th of which is unsecured.

This debt mountain has helped keep the UK economy relatively buoyant, supporting increased consumer spending, but you don't have to be a Nobel prize winning economist to be a little bit worried about how sustainable all this is.

On an individual level the The Independent points out that, "In 2005, an estimated 110,000 people reached the haven of bankruptcy, sequestration, a CCCS debt management plan or insolvency. That compares with 71,000 in 2004 and 54,000 in 2003 - a doubling in three years." Any significant increases in interest rates would presumably see this figure increase further.

Of course one reason why we are so addicted to cheap credit in the UK is the fact that property prices are so out of kilter with the rest of the economy that many people have seen the 'value' of their chief asset soar. Of course, the reality is that spiraling property prices create not a jot of additional 'wealth' - but they do allow us to borrow increasing amounts of cheap credit. Presumably any significant fall in the housing market would leave lots of people exposed to negative equity (again). Mortgage repossessions are already up "by 66% in the 3rd quarter of last year".

All this doom and gloom and the Christmas credit card bills haven't even arrived yet...Warned you I was going to get back to the boring/worthy stuff after the Christmas break!