Morning:
8°c
With a single dessert and just two glasses of wine our bill was kept in check - but the effort of doing so was not much fun
Latest: Gordon Brown apologises for his poor handwriting and for misspelling the name of a dead soldier in a letter to the young man’s mother
More...
Average Briton is free of debt by the age 50 (and nine months)
Last updated at 16:22pm on 22.01.08
People have to wait until they are 50 before they can be happily debt-free
At the age of 50 years and 90 days the average Briton finally shakes off the shackles of student loans, credit card debts and personal loans and can look forward to a richer future.
But there is a catch - and it's rather a large one. Mortgages. That debt-free dawn at 50 does not include the money owed on home loans.
Nevertheless, research from finance experts Your Money Matters yesterday came up with the average age for men and women across the country at which they move out of the red and into the black.
Not counting their mortgage, men will typically be free of debt at the age of 52 and three months, while the average woman will be in the clear in just 47 years and two months.
The difference is down to the fact that men are in greater debt than women.
Overall, the average Briton is in debt to the tune of £10,306, excluding mortgage. The average man owes £12,631 while the average woman owes £7,982, which means that men need more than three years more to reach the debt-free point.
Both sexes use a mixture of salary, inheritance, windfalls and profit from investments including property and shares to pay off creditors, the research found.
Regionally, Londoners clear their debts the earliest, probably thanks to larger salaries and profits from property sales. They start celebrating financial independence at 42 years and 11 months.
The Welsh take the longest to move into the black - 53 years and one month.
In Scotland the debt-free age is 49 years and six months. In Yorkshire it is 52 years and one month, while in the Midlands it is 50 years and eight months.
But even then, of course, we are still not free to spend cash on whatever we wish.
Mortgages, the biggest source of debt, are tying down homeowners later and later into old age.
Research published last week showed one in five pensioners - more than a million homeowners - have an outstanding mortgage on their property, owing an average of £38,000 each.
And one in eight still owes more than £50,000.
Many have been forced to extend their mortgage repayments well beyond the original terms of their loans, while others extended their debt by taking out equity on their homes.
A spokesman for Your Money Matters said: "As the cost of living continues to increase, we're being forced to save through our 20s and delay the major milestones of life until our 30s.
"We're not having kids till 30 or getting married until 31.
"Kids cost an average of £186,000 each and you get little change from £20,000 from a wedding.
"On top of that, the average cost of a house is now well over £200,000 so we're not even getting on the housing ladder until the grand old age of 34.
"All of this, and with the average British salary of just £25,986 for men and £20,488 for women, means it is no surprise that the majority of us are hitting our 50s before shaking off the shackles of debt."
The online research among 1,000 people was commissioned for Your Money Matters at Excel in London's Docklands.
