Money Talk
Many of us have dreams for our retirement and while for most, our pension pot may not stretch to retiring to the Caribbean, if you’ve saved for your retirement, you’d hope to be able to enjoy the rewards of a long working life.
Yet the sad fact is that around one in four people planning to retire this year will do so with a large chunk of debt hanging over them, according to research from the Prudential.
The average amount owed on retirement is £24,300 – the highest level of debt for seven years – with 51% of us still trying to clear our credit cards during retirement.
When it comes to where all this debt comes from – over 90% of what we owe is due to a mix of credit cards, personal loans, overdrafts and hire purchase agreements.
If you know you’ve got a healthy pension pot to fall back on, and are able to use some of it to clear your debts, that’s fine, but for others, it may be a case of struggling financially. With smaller amounts, cutting back, switching card balances to 0% balance transfer deals, and trying to clear debts as soon as possible may do the trick.
However, if you’re starting to struggle, paying high interest rates or seeing debts start to spiral, get free debt advice from Citizens Advice, National Debtline or StepChange. They’re all there to help, not judge, and will offer free advice.