debt....how does it make you feel?

bleugh

my debts have never majorly worried me, i've always figured, whatever i do, i can get work, and i can always pay a little for a few months if i'm skint, and pay more when i'm not
I left university and then purchased my own home, and ended up 13k in debt total,
admittedly 7.5k is student loans, at naff all interest. the other amount was on credit cards/loans/overdrafts

I'm one of those people who always tries to find a way of 'getting around' something, i've juggled 6K of debt in a loan at 6.7% and credit cards at 0%. i've bought stuff and sold it on ebay to make a huge difference to my loans

i'm in a steady job, my wages = to 2x the basic bills on the house (mortgage, etc), i've set my debt repayments are more than half my take home wages, so i've no choice, to have money in my pocket, i HAVE to earn it somewhere else, usually ebay or bootsales, its forced me to make an effort

I've been a little obsessive really, more as a goal, just to prove to my parents I'm responsible, I can do nice things like buy a £200 camera and not worry too much, i've used the credit cards to buy xboxes to sell on ebay, 'balance transferring' to a 0% card then pocketing the interest, I can do all that without worrying too much

at the end of the day, come the end of april, since i've started paying my debts, i'll have paid off ALL of my debts in just over 3 years,
I havent gone out as much as I could have, but i've treated myself, bought nice things, and been responsible

at the end of the day, dont worry about debts that much, yes, do something about them, but my personal thought is, do your homework, be active in responsibly juggling your cards and loans to the lowest interest rate, and it'll save you money,

move your mortgages to cheaper companies also, take out a credit card at 0% for 9 months, transfer a chunk of your loan to that for a while and pay the minimum every month, then transfer the remainder back or to another card at 0%

dont sit down and think 'oh, poo, it's all crap, i can't cope'
sit down, and use some brainpower, spreadsheets if you have to and figure it out, at the end of the day, if you're 20k in debt, you could pay that off in around 20 years at around £90 a month, it's not that much really, but, if you're young, you could look at it as you'll get a nice bump in your takehome pay in 20 years :-), and a bigger rise in 25 when your mortgage is paid off!!

toonfan

For 21 years I was happy to let me wife run the finances. She protected me from the mounting debt problem as my mental health declined through intense work pressures. Whilst we both (and our two kids!!) were the cause of our £5k debt, she bore the symptoms and the guilt. I knew there was a problem but pretended it wasnt there. Realisation set in watching Martin on one of those prorgrammes I usually turned away from. Too much truth can be hard to bear at times.
Panic set in, sweats, anxiety the whole shooting match. I felt thoroughly ashamed at the burden my wife had shouldered without support. My loving wife was just relieved that I was facing up to responsibilities and we would tackle the problem together. I read THE book. We budgetted, we planned - we reduced the debt by freeing up some savings but also by major tightening of belts, switching accounts and much changed lifestyle. We will be debt free sooner than I originally thought. If my projections are accurate it could be by the end of the year. All good news.
BUT all is not rosey... I am hooked on budgetting on spreadsheets on taking control. Being a complete and utter obsessive, I cant relax. I am thrown into complete turmoil if it looks as if we will suffer a setback. And sometimes that can be just over something so small.

Anybody experienced anything similar - Is this just a phase?

roversbabe

My debt used to make me feel sick and made my stomach churn. Once I faced the problem 9 months ago, I was angry with myself and ashamed of my stupidity.

In the last 9 months, I've cleared a MASSIVE chunk of my debt, reigned in my spending, organised myself and feel totally in control - seeing the debt reduce month by month is really satisfying. Due to this site and what I've learned in the last 12 months, I've also been able to offer assistance to family members in organising their finances. I'd be lost without my spreadsheets.

I feel good about myself now - I've accepted my stupidity, learned from my mistakes and get closer to my debt free date every month.

Good luck to all - I've found it gets easier as time goes on.

rb

*Sparkle*_3

pixie1 wrote:

I loose sleep, Im teary all of the time, ashamed, moody and depressed basically no fun what so ever to be around. I was so desperate at one point I even looked into working for an escort agency!!!

Oh Pixie, i'm sorry you feel like that!
There is light at the end of the tunnel, and as long as your good and knuckle down it will get sorted! Keep your chin up

nearlyrich

toonfan wrote:

I am hooked on budgetting on spreadsheets on taking control.

Hi toonfan welcome to MSE, I sometimes think I am obsessed with my finances too, I'm not in debt now but I have been and like you I am determined not to get into that position again.

I have all my finances on spreadsheets, I use online banking and I look at it nearly everyday, sometimes more than once:o

toys19

I am in business and have loans that I am servicing of over 600K. It will take about 10 years to pay it back, (true I will get some benefits from the loan). But it is all a state of mind, look at your debt positively, you probably had a great time. Some of you say that you feel guilty. About what? Is it a crime to be in debt? No, you have been tempted into purchasing consumer goods, and taking out loans, credit cards etc by a bunch of advertising executives who spend millions studying human behaviour and pschology to find the ways of getting under your skin. They are the world experts at making you think that you need product x. Forget it, you have nothing to feel guilty about, but you have learnt an important lesson: don't fall for it. But then you know that already, thats why you are on this website...
Life is a challenge, rise up to that challenge and show it who is boss.

Lord_Fonty

I owe about 10,000. 7000 of it is in a flexible loan, which my wife thought I was paying it off. I have been drawing on it for one thing or another and the interest has caught up with me. My wife was taking unpaid Maternity leave, which I was helping pay for. Unfortunatley I didn't tell her that I was funding it via the flexible loan. The HSBC kept putting more and more charges on me to the tune of £100 per month and I got deeper and deeper. I finally told her last night after 14 months and it has broke her heart..

I am paying my Visa off which is the remainder but now I have to shift my loan on to a fixed rate loan to avoid the temptation to draw on it again. I feel devestated that I have caused my wife so much upset. I have also switched my current account away from the HSBC because I feel that they have been ripping me off I have been a customer for over 19 years.

ChristinaJohnson

I'm in the same position as a lot of you with £27k of debt. It's a pretty depressing situation to be in and I've definitely had some dark moments (in fact, last night I had a nightmare that I had debt collection agencies following me all over the country, going after my family etc, and I had to go on the run)! I probably need to tell my subconscious to get with the programme though, as I contacted the CCCS 15 months ago and they've been incredible - they take about a month to put in place the initial stages of the debt management scheme but after that they're always on hand to give you advice. When my creditors call they calm me down, talk about the best way to deal with them and reassure me that I'm not alone.

Similar to the first thread on this page, I have really struggled with shame and guilt about getting myself into the situation - there's nothing to show for the money and now I'm living hand to mouth. But it is important to look at the corollary of that - yes, we got ourselves into a horrible situation, but we're also all taking responsibility for that and trying to get ourselves out of it. Ultimately we will all pay it off and we'll be better money people for having been through it as I for one will never let myself get back into this situation.

Hopefully more banks will start using the Equifax system that allows them to see how much debt customers are in before they feed them another loan. It still makes me wince to think about the last loan I took out when I went in to the bank in tears explaining that I was desperate as was heavily in debt, and they just offered me another consolidation loan. Although banks are businesses, it's about time they operated ethically and started pointing people in genuine distress towards organisations like the CCCS and National Debtline.

Lord_Fonty

I have had allot of problems with the HSBC. They always allowed transactions through that sent me over the limit up to 5 during a month. During this time I would add more funds to my account, which happen to clear after the 5 transactions but leave me in the positive at the end of the month. Then I get a bank charge of £125. I questioned this many times and get standard answer 'All banks do this'. Well guess what all banks don't so I have switched. Once I got into this sequence of charges every month I couldn't get out of it and ended up dipping into my flex loan every single month.

I know people can quickly say well you should be better with your money but for the last 2 years money has been tight in our house with me stupidly trying to take it on without involving my wife.

dont_want_to_be_in_debt

We were at £80,000 debt, sold off a flat with neg equity, at last making a profit now will be down to £50,000. With the help of this web site and other posters we are determined to owe nothing in 5 years, well here we go it wont be nice with 2 young kids. We try to stay fixed on succeeding but it eats at you all the time.