What makes you decide to fight to pay your debts? What makes you decide to go BR?

hypno06

I choose to struggle on for two main reasons:

1) I cannot continue in my career if I have a trashed credit record....so no DMP, IVA or BR for me unless I want to change my job.....which I don't.

2) A small amount of my debt was paid off when my dad died. It was not much money that I received, but it all went to the debt, and was the result of his "life's work"......I would feel that I was letting him down if I didn't carry on and pay off the rest.

And it has worked for me - over £100k on top of my mortgage at its worst - now down to £26k, with all interest paid on the way, and a debt free target of next Easter.

But of course, everyone is different, with different reasons for choosing to do what they do.

Mozette

It obviously depends on personal circumstances; some people are made bankrupt, like it or not, some have no forseeable way of ever being able to pay off their debts.
I would doubt that it is ever a decision taken lightly. I'm paying off my debts, but I was in a position to do so in a relatively short time. Had I lost my job, for example, I would have had to go bankrupt.

Deep_In_Debt

I choose to struggle as I have too much to lose if I go BR.

I'm single, live on my own, mortgage is a struggle but not hideous but it would cost me more to rent a place than I'm paying in mortgage - simply, I can't afford to rent! I'm due to be mortgage free in less than 5 years so I'm choosing to crack away at the debts and be debt free before I'm mortgage free.

I'm on a dmp - couldn't do BR at the time of going on a dmp as I worked in an advisory role within Financial Services. I'm still in the same industry, no longer in an advisory role so could do BR but choose not to as I've come so far in clearing 7k of debt in a year that I want to carry on (have a long way to go though!) but want to crack away at it.

Lemon_Tree

i never considered BR and was lucky not to need to do an IVA or DMP, but i worked along the lines that i spent the money knowingly and therefore should pay it back. everyone is entitled their opinion and morals and i don't think just because you can technically write off debt that it's isn't yours to pay back or that you should (just my opinion and not a judgement on others).
Also i couldn't take any of the options and mess up my credit rating due to my job, which mostly i love.

YORKSHIRELASS

Interesting one. I will carry on chipping away at my debts until they are cleared because I feel this is the right thing to do. Like others have said I got myself into this mess and I want to work my way out of it.

I also have a good credit rating because I spent years just paying minimum payments. Credit card companies love me. Although I dont plan to increase my credit cards or overdraft I am scared of not being able to get credit if it really was a last resort. Probably the wrong attitude but I have got kids to support.

I am also mindful of the current economic situation though. Because I have debts already if something happened like me or OH losing our jobs we would be stuffed. Then we might have no choice.

sams247

My partner works in a job where she cannot become BR so I appreciate why someone's job would be an influence. It sounds so naive but until my neighbour told me that she'd been advised to go bankrupt, and I looked into it, I had never given BR a single thought. In fact I regarded it as the worst case scenario. I lost my home in my divorce, and gained debts from that time too, but it never occurred to me to do anything but plod on and pay. I think the payments just become part of daily living. I think it would be very different if the hassle calls started up again, or if (heaven forbid) I lost my job. But I can also see why my neighbour is tempted to be free of her debts that are dragging her down.

And deepindebt - I totally agree with you on the mortgage to rent thing, we pay more to rent than we ever did to own our house. Its a weird twist of debt!

sams247

Ames- I had ME for many years, it's a difficult one to describe to 'non-believers' to be sure!

angelflower_2

there is a part of me that just desperately wants to pay it off because I know lesson not learned if I dont 'suck it up' as well as the pride thing....I need to pay it off as I know I am due it back. But the main thing stopping me is the fear of losing my home. That is my haven as well as being the only affordable home I have access too. If I lost my home, I will really struggle to find something else.

Currently mortgage company seeking repossession and if that is granted there will be a part of me that dies, that gives up and I will go down the bankrupcy route. Current debt plus negative equity will be far to much to bare emotionally as well as financially and I will need to give myself more of a clean slate.

MissShoes

I am paying it off as I spent it and I want to enjoy payday for the whole month!!! I am looking forward to being debt free and I'm aiming for it in 1 year- by July 2010 (15k to pay off). After that, my money will be my own and I will NEVER get into debt again with th exception of a mortgage.

nervousmother

The situation I was left in was a strange one, we had struggled and paid alot of debt off over the past 7 years, debt that came about mainly from a business partner dying and from being ripped off by another business partner and from somone de-frauding us but of course the credit card company just took the money from our business.. we had build up houses and equity sold what we could at the time to pay off loads.. we carried on fighting to pay our debts for another 4 years. My personal debt was about 2k overdraft and about 10k loan Id had a number of years, the rest belonged to OH business debts that had now ceased trading. The crunch came with Northern Rock, we tried for a year to sell the property, we asked if we could rent it out.. they said no. we had a offer at one point that was just under (10k) the amount we owed to them but they would not allow us to sell it as it did not cover their money. another year passed and it go repossessed, when OH saw it advertised at such a price we would be left owing them over 100k we threw in the towel.
Stupid thing is I would happily pay off my overdraft and the loan I had, i feel guilty about that but I dont feel guilty over Northern Rock and although yes if we lived on the breadline for the next 60 years we could have paid it back I honestly was not prepared to. They behaved badly too.