Pointless purchases push people towards poverty
Published On 18 July 2007
People from the UK are risking debt by purchasing expensive items which they rarely use, new research suggests.Findings published by Abbey Savings show that Brits have wasted £169 billion buying pricey items which then gather dust in homes up and down the country.
A typical person from the UK has £3,685 worth of what the lender has dubbed 'pointless purchases' - with things like clothes, fine china and inappropriate shoes all cited as common mistake buys.
Half (50 per cent) the people questioned admitted they have expensive clothes in their wardrobe that never see the light of day and 35 per cent own unworn shoes.
Men also buy electrical equipment that goes to waste, with 28 per cent saying that they own a video camera or games console that it hardly ever used.
"It seems that the majority of Brits aren't making their assets work hard enough for them," commented Reza Attar Zadeh, head of savings at the bank.
"With 64 per cent of UK adults having bought a big ticket 'pointless purchase', we'd recommend that people consider carefully where they are investing their hard earned cash."
Recent figures from Credit Action showed that these purchases helped push consumer debt in the UK above £1.3 trillion in April.
