Many consumers point to rising debt and difficulty living within their means as the main culprits to falling behind on their bills, according to a first-of-its-kind report from Achieve, a digital personal finance firm.
Achieve Center for Consumer Insights finds that nearly one-third of consumers, or 31 percent, said it is very difficult or difficult for them to pay their recurring debts on time.
Achieve’s think tank, the Achieve Center for Consumer Insights, surveyed 2,000 consumers with active accounts across six categories of consumer debt, including credit cards, mortgages and home equity lines of credit, auto and student loans.
Consumers with a delinquency on any account in the past six months pointed to a number of reasons they got behind on their payments, including the impact of inflation on essential expenses (21%), a reduction in work and income (20%) and forgetting to pay (11%). In addition, consumers with a recent credit card delinquency said interest rate increases (6%) made paying difficult, while delinquent auto loan borrowers cited difficulty managing cash flow between when respondents receive income and their payment due dates (7%). In student loans, 6% of delinquent borrowers said they missed a payment because they didn’t want to pay.
Nearly one-third of consumers (31%) said it is very difficult or difficult for them to pay their recurring debts on time. Among these respondents, 65% said it simply comes down to not having enough income to cover their spending. Other challenges include owing money on too many different accounts (39%); cash flow timing differences between when income is received and debt payments are due (27%) and difficulty keeping track of how much is owed across all their accounts (14%).
“For many consumers, money is going out the door as quickly as it’s coming in, if not faster,” Housser said.