My Debt Story - starting as a silly 18yr old (2002)

richardsimkiss

This is the second time i've tried writing this post... i was halfway through my story when I realised it was far too long to maintain anyones attention!

My story of debt starts virtually the day of my 18th birthday.

A few days after turning 18 i went to the bank and asked for an overdraft, they gave me a £200 limit, easy as anything. That went, so i went back to the bank to ask for more, I couldn't believe it, it seriously felt like i'd won the lottery! they raised my limit to £700 and offered me a £1000 credit card. I paid no attention to the interest rates or anything, I even took on board the payment protection plan thing incase i became ill, what was i thinking???

a new set of alloy wheels and a car crash later, i found myself without enough money to pay my insurance excess, on a claim that was only third party. I took out a £2500 loan, (again from the bank, without looking into interest rates) which they gave me, i decided this would put my account and credit card back into credit. IT DID! for a few months, without going into details I made a silly, no, STUPID mistake and bought a dud car engine for over a grand.
I felt stupid and again was struggling for money, I could barely make the payments on my loan, so I took out another loan with a massive interest rate for people with bad credit ratings...

By the time I started University i was almost £5000 in debt. My long term girlfriend left me and I dropped out of uni. BIG WAKE UP CALL!!! I got myself a full time job paying basic wage, re-enrolled at university the following year and continued to work 25 hours a week to earn extra money. The wake up call, the day of realisation, was such a major turning point in my life. I started using my student loan to pay off my bank loans, and lived off my earnings, paying back as much debt as I could (I was able to commute from home where i could live rent free)


Although I do have the additional debt now of a student loan, the debts which i started university with now (as of January 1st 2006) stand at £1514 sitting in an interest free account. Now this will to many not sound too great, i've only paid back £3500 ish in 4 years, but what makes me really happy is that through learning from my mistakes, I'm now MUCH more money-wise, I'm living a happy lifestyle and enjoying myself, I have friends, i go out from time to time, i buy clothes i like and I even spent a lovely week in Corfu with my girlfriend in the summer.. I haven't gone into lots of debt on top of my student loan like most students seem to do AND i've paid back £3500!!

I'm now one year from graduating having been transferred onto a Masters degree. I'm hoping that by the time I graduate I will only have my student loan to repay. should this be the case i'll be a very happy man.

borntoshop

Good luck with it, sounds like you are already on the road to being debt free!!

frosty

well done :beer: