Brits lend £22.8 billion to friends and family annually

While some of us keep our purse strings a little tighter than others, lending money to friends and family is often part and parcel of daily life.

But, do you keep track of just how much money you're handing out? And do you always make sure to get the exact amount back again?

New research from Circle, the social payment app, shows that in Britain we lend £22.8 billion to friends and family each year.

Sounds like a lot? It is! It actually works out as more than the GDP of Iceland...

What about when the shoe is on the other foot and someone lends you money - do you always pay them back or does it sometimes slip your mind?

When it comes to handing over your own money there are a few people to look out for.

According to the research, while millenials are likely to lend you money more easily, they are also less likely to pay you back when they take yours.

As with many things, Brits feel awkward about asking for money back, which ultimately means sometimes we end up losing money.

More than a third of people who have asked to be paid back were worried they would cause offense while millenials are twice as likely to worry about offending people than over 35s.

Shockingly the research also showed that only three in ten lenders always get their money back and of those three, only 4% get it back within a day: nearly 10% have to wait for a year to reclaim their funds.

On average Brits lends around £6.40 to their friends each month, this may not sound like a lot but that works out as £76.80 a year, which is a fair amount if you're not getting it back.

Maybe you think this is all a little over the top and money can never come between friends, that's what we thought too but 7% of people polled admitted that they had lost friends because of money owed.

So it looks like it's time to get out the IOU's and start paying your friends and family back.