Credit and debt news
Fourteen years to afford an it-bag
26 February, 2007
London might be one of the fashion capitals of the world, but Birmingham is the British fashion-spending capital
A passion for fashion might make heads turn, but it will also leave shopaholics with an average £8,092.97 worth of debt. This won’t stop the spending though as they continue to rack up just under £100 more than the average woman each month.
Alongside Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool and Bristol are home to the greatest concentration of shopaholics. Liverpudlians have the highest amount of unsecured debt.
British woman have a shocking amount of debt, where credit cards exceed £11 billion and they owe more than £20 billion in unsecured loans. This is coupled with the fact that a third of women rely on their overdraft each month.
Jay Hunt, spending and style expert from the BBC3 programme Spendaholics asys: “Shopping is the nation’s favourite pastime byt so many of us throw money away needlessly.”
This is echoed by Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch.com who says: “Fat used to be a feminist issue, but it looks like it’s being overtaken by debt. In today’s celebrity obsessed society, where women emulate the lifestyles and shopping habits of their favourite fashionistas, it’s not surprising that women are becoming more interested in size zero than 0 per cent APR.”
The average shopaholic earns £18,959 per cent which is slightly more than the average British woman at £17,784. However she only has £4,485 tucked away in savings, less than half that of someone who has their shopping cravings under control.
In addition, more than 486,000 women admit they have sneaked purchases onto their partner’s credit card and two in five have lied to their other half about their spending habits, hiding bags in cupboards and passing items off as presents.
Indulging your designer passions can prove more costly than originally thought though as interest repayments on a typical 16.8 per cent APR credit card can push the initial bill through the roof. A pair of Christian Louboutin shoes at £345 can end up costing £591.94 if repaying the minimum amount – it will take a grand total of 8 years and 9 months. Similarly, a £738 Chloe ‘Edith’ it-bag will take just over 14 years to pay off the £1,418 it will end up costing.
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