Debt, housing, bills and rail fares

January will be one of the busiest months ever for debt charities, according to Citizens Advice and National Debtline. A combination of overspending on Christmas and longer-term financial problems will result in many people asking for money advice this month, The Guardian reports. The paper says: ‘Citizens Advice expects more than 370,000 people to seek help on a range of financial issues including post-Christmas debts over the next two months. National Debtline, which took an average of 715 calls a day in December and helped more than 40,000 people online last month, said it expected January to be its busiest month in several years.’ Housing

The Government says that thousands of homes for first-time buyers will be built during 2016.

The BBC reports that 30 areas across England are to receive funding from the £1.2 billion ‘Starter Homes Land Fund’ for the new developments on brownfield sites. In order to quality for a discount of at least 20 per cent below market value, buyers must be aged between 23 and 40. In other housing news, The Telegraph reports that property prices have ‘climbed to dangerous levels in several advanced economies, raising the risk of massive price falls if markets overheat’. It cites the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which says it is monitoring ‘vulnerabilities in asset markets’ closely. Bills Household bills rocketed by almost £200 in 2016, according to new findings from comparethemarket.com. An analysis of costs across energy, motor and home insurance found that, after a £180 drop in 2015, bills rose by 9.7 per cent in the past year from £2,032 in 2015 to £2,223 in 2016. With consumers taking on around £160 in debt over Christmas, according to recent analysis from comparethemarket.com, many will be starting the year £360 worse off. Shopping

The continued rise in internet shopping resulted in a drop in the number of bargain-hunters hitting the sales on New Year’s Day.

The Daily Mail claims this could ‘signal the end of the January sales tradition’. The paper reported new data from the consultancy Springboard which said that footfall fell by 49.5 per cent at shopping centres and retail parks on Sunday, while a drop of 12.7 per cent was recorded on high streets. The average decline came to 23.8 per cent for all retailers.

Rail fares

The Times reports that rail commuters are now paying up to six times as much as their counterparts on the continent. This follows the latest round of fare increases which are pegged at more than the rate of inflation.

According to the paper, ‘regular passengers are spending as much as 14 per cent of their salary travelling by train to work every day, research being published today by a union-backed campaign shows. By comparison, the daily commute in countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain costs only 2 to 4 per cent of workers’ salaries, it is claimed.’