Young Devon mum says her dream of owning a home is disappearing as interest rates rise
A young mum in Devon fears she may never own her own home as interest rates continue to rise.
On Thursday the Bank of England announced the biggest base rate hike for 33 years, from 2.25 per cent to 3 per cent, sparking fears among people with variable rate mortgages or looking to get on the property ladder.
Jade Stanley, aged 23, who lives in Barnstaple with her children, struggled with debt for years before getting her finances sorted thanks to help from a charity.
'Even though I'm in a better place, there is still room for me to fall behind,' she told ITV West Country.
'I went food shopping the other day, I had my budget and my calculator, and as I was going round I thought how is it this much already, I've only got half of the things on my list.'
Jade rents her flat through the council. She says that the idea of owning her own home is a distant dream with the cost of living increasing so rapidly.
'I'm very grateful for my flat, but I would love to own my own house. But with everything going up, that dream is just disappearing.'
The Bank of England has unveiled a 0.75% interest rate rise - the biggest since the 1980s - in a bid to control the runaway inflation.
It sees the Bank’s base interest rate rise from 2.25% to 3%, the highest since 2008.
The decision was made by the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and is the single biggest increase in interest rates since 1989.
All but two members of the MPC voted to push up interest rates by 0.75 percentage points. One member voted for a 0.5 percentage point increase, while another wanted a much softer 0.25 percentage point rise.
The Bank of England says further interest rate hikes - possibly reaching 5.2% - could be required to pull inflation back to its 2% target.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: "The most important thing the British government can do right now is to restore stability, sort out our public finances, and get debt falling so that interest rate rises are kept as low as possible" but he admitted "there are no easy options".