Debt - Middle-Class Struggling

According to a recent study, roughly 15m Britons are living a “deluded” financial lifestyle – trying to maintain a middle-class standard of living on a working class wage.

Many are living in a middle-class fantasy world of second homes, private schools, home helpers, numerous holidays and designer clothing. With some salaries in the region of £15,000, financing this flamboyant lifestyle doesn’t come easy.

In fact, it is not the social climbers’ income that’s financing their lifestyle but their soaring amount of outstanding debt. The study revealed that such people are in an average of £13,000 of debt; this is on top of any mortgage repayment(s).

Participants where probed about what class they consider themselves, their earnings and their debts. It was uncovered that Cardiff was the hub of the “social climbers”, with the majority considering themselves middle-class, but with earnings suggesting otherwise.

At the other end of the spectrum are the people of Liverpool who have the highest amount of disposable income along with the highest rate of people who consider themselves to be working-class.

As mentioned, many parents are choosing to put their children through private education as opposed to government funded schools. This is an extremely costly system to get tied into, with the average fee for a term in the region of £2,700. For those parents opting for boarding school, this figure rises to a staggering £6,700!

Rising living costs along with falling house prices have led to a great deal of consumers having to remortgage their homes in order keep up with debts.

With so many using credit cards and personal loans to finance their day to day lives, it is only a matter of time before this has a serious knock-on affect on the markets as a whole. In fact, this month the Citizens Advice Bureau will deal with roughly 6,600 debt related phone calls a day.