What Caused Your Debt in the First Place

Pigeongirl

Compulsive food shopping :rolleyes:

comping_cat

My debts came from a Florida holiday 3 years ago, a house move at the same time, and the need to buy a MPV!!!(as a childminder i needed to carry the children safely in the car) My debt free date has gone back 2 years, as we decided to go on holiday back to Florida this year (havnt had a holiday in 3 years, since the last one!), so i increased the amount, and time of my loan. However, all my other debts have been paid off, and its just this last loan and my mortgage that i have left.

Aidenr

My debt started when i was relocated with work
moved in to a great apartment that i convinced myself i could afford. been skiiming off the edge ever since and missing payments on things.
tied in until September as private rented. love the place though.
will have to move in sept i think (boo hoo)

black-saturn

My ex bought a shed and various other items on my credit card then I walked out of the relationship due to abuse so I had to pay it all off. I also bought a few other things I needed for the house on it as I had absolutely nothing. It's all paid off now though :beer:

amosworks

tesuhoha wrote:

Well it sounds as if some of us had something we really wanted and the remainder had bad luck. No irresponsible wild spending apart perhaps from Amosworks unless he/she is joking!

Actually he's not joking at all :-\

I did buy lots of "stuff" too. In fact I don't own much of it now as I had to sell lots of it so I could afford to eat. Funny that.

jitsuguy

Hi all,

Mine was mainly whilst doing my MSc course after my first degree and now I'm doing a PhD!!! But luckily I get a grant with the PhD, admittedly they do only pay us every 3 months, have to budget big time! It is also enough to pay back the majority of my debts.

Jitsuguy

Montymoo_2

Mine is a combination of
1) going to university (what a waste of money, never been able to get a job that requires a degree)
2) my job in sales with unreachable targets that meant i and many others in the company had to live on our credit cards
3) leaving my job to relocate to the other side of the country due to my partners job
4) the old going over the overdraft, being charged cycle

Glitterari

:rolleyes: My Mum was never very good with money. Until I was about 5 we lived in a council flat in really nasty area and lived off benefits.

Because we never had much money as a family, when I was younger, everything was bought from charity shops, we never went on a holiday overseas - I can only remember ever going on holiday twice as a youngster, to the Isle of Wight and I think it was through the Sun newspaper!

When I left school, and got a job in a factory (until i started college) and had my own money, it was just spend spend spend! i never saved a penny, had no expenses (this was just before mobile phones became popular) and so I spent it all. It was mainly on socialising, clothes, make-up...nothing of any value! Those were the days!

But also, because I was young (under 18) I could never actually spend more than I had. So, I wasn't living beyound my means...but I did regularly ask Mum for hand outs! (I always paid it back. Then asked for it back again within a few days!)

When i went to uni, the bank insisted that I have a credit card (I said I didn't want one - but they said it came as part of the student package). Went to uni in London...and I got a huge amount of money from my student loan (don't laugh £1000 odd seemed massive to me!) and just spent it all! By year two of uni, my overdraft was up to the limit (which kept being increased!) and my credit card was maxed too and that was increased accordingly. So I carried on spending accordingly. I even bought my 1st car with my student loan, a battered old mini for £150! I loved that car!

Nothing to show for it...apart from lots of driving experience now!! :rotfl:
Oh and my degree... :rolleyes: yeah forgot about that one! However, my degree has come in slightly useful, as I'm doing a MA in September of something I actually want to do.

When I graduated, I got a job that you could get without any GCSE's and as I didn't have much coming in, I was meeting all the minimum repayments so it didn't seem to matter so much.

Sorry for the essay!

angeldiva

My debt is a joke and how I got into it is really saddening, as I read what I wrote I felt quite down and wish I hadn't been so silly.

It started when I moved in with my boyfriend who paid all the bills, instead of saving or anything sensible. I used to buy clothes, and look good, I modelled at the time so felt that I had to keep up my image, manicure, pedicures, shoes, clothes, hair then I brought a car, on the Renault Finance only £99 a month, didn’t care that the APR was so high it should be illegal or that I would have been paying it off for years…credit card limit rose and rose…from £1k to 10k and all of a sudden I was drowning. Modelling jobs were getting fewer as its an oversaturated market but he was always bailing me out and giving me money I didn’t realise the true extent of the debt.

Then we broke up but I was convinced that I couldn’t go and rent and pay off someone else's mortgage so I got a full time job and brought a crappy flat, more expense had to do it up more credit card bills and I didn’t have any furniture or anything I could call my own so brought everything brand new!! (I'm shaking my head when I think of that) I consolidated a few times and kept running up things again and then then when I started missing payments, reminder letters started dropping on the mat and there was no boyfriend to bail me out, I woke up! Had a lightbulb moment and realised that it was time to turn my life around.

Right now I can say that I do have something to show for it though…my car, and my lovely flat so even now, that I cant afford to go out, I come home and have somewhere nice to relax..and I'm managing to pay everyone properly and on time.

Sorry for the long essay....

vix1978_2

Very short reason for me - I was married to a man that spent so much money I had two jobs at home time to keep a roof overs our heads. He would only divorce me if I took on all the debts so I did. I paid back a huge wedge of this, but slowly the credit card balance grew again.

I now have one final loan left over from the divorce which I hope to pay by the end of this year.

I have two 0% credit cards - one to be paid in August, the other December. I also have a 0% for life overdraft and new sofas we bought for our flat are also 0% until they are paid off. I will try to pay these off as soon as the other debts are paid, but I'm not going to worry too much about them. I just want to be able to say I am completely debt free.