Too old to be likely to be able to repay debt

jenmary

I wonder if anyone can give me advice? I have debts of £18000 which I can't repay on my wage. I have a minimum payment agreement with each of my creditors, and pay each of them £1/month. I can't improve on this unless I can find a better paid job, but have not been successful with this. What I am losing sleep about is, I am 56, and am really worried about how I will repay this when I have to retire, as my income will go down. I can't see how I will ever be able to pay off the debt, and just don't know what to do.
Help!!!!!

Feelingfoolish_3

Hi Jenmary

Welcome
First and foremost have you taken advice on this?
That you be your first port of call

Paying £1 token payments is a short term solution as you have obviously seen. Bankruptcy is certainly an option however as I dont know your whole situation then I couldnt say if it was best for you. If you have no assets - house/car/antiques/expensive jewellry/cash under the bed ;-) but if you have none then yeah I would say BR would be a good option for you.

Life is too short to lose sleep over the debts and there are solutions for you

take care

verychattyeve

Hi Jenmary,
My personal experience was, I am 54 was on reduced payments with creditors since divorce in 2005. I was struggling working 3 jobs and doing 70 hours a week for more than 18 months then in December I was made redundant from one job, the money I got from that was what I was using to pay my creditors. I had been thinking about bankruptcy for some time but the loss of that job made the decision for me. I would have been paying creditors back until i was at least 70!.
I suppose I can say I was lucky in that I had no home to lose and no assets so in my view I had nothing to lose but my debts.
I became bankrupt 17th June this year and have not one regret about doing it. I can now look forward to a debt free retirement (even though retirement age has gone up and I will be nearly 65 before I can do that but thats another issue! LOL).

Like FF says, life is too short to lose sleep over debts. For me, bankruptcy was a line drawn under my past mistakes and now its a new start.

Nothing is not "solveable" (if there is such a word)

E xx

Charco_2

Of course there is such a word, it's spelt "solvable" but it could also be spelt, R-E-L-A-X!

There will be a solution. you may not like it, but there will be a solution. The first step is to go looking for it!

If you had a toothache, you'd know to go to a dentist.
If you were ill you'd go to the doctors.

You have a financial problem so go speak to a debt management company. And an Insolvency company. And CAB, and a financial advisor, and the good people on here. There really is no point in making yourself ill over it, that wont solve it.

If it turns out that you have no way to repay the debt then so be it! All that means is that you don't have a debt problem... your creditors do :rotfl:

(sorry if that is too flippant, all i mean is that you shouldn't let it get too much on top of you. Look at Northern Rock, they're supposed to be the financial professionals and they couldn't get it right. How many of the highstreet banks recently took advantage of the Govt sponsored rescue package last year? Why shouldn't you have a way out too!?)

Miss_Poohs

Charco wrote: »

If it turns out that you have no way to repay the debt then so be it! All that means is that you don't have a debt problem... your creditors do :rotfl:

Ohhh I like that :T never thought of it like that

Get professional advice Eve and the good peeps from here will listen to you as you work your way to the best solution for you.

Miss P

jenmary

Thank you so much to all you kind people who have replied. I was feeling a bit isolated, but after reading the above I feel a lot more hopeful and have also found out about a DRO which I am going to look into.
Thanks again all, much appreciated!

skylight

A DRO is not open to you as your debts exceed £15k. Sorry. And you MUST include all your debts, so you cannot leave some off and pay a handful.

http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/bankruptcy/DRO/faq.htm#1


Check this out for a definitive guide to all things DRO.

Kaulew

I'm with you on this one Jenmary, I know exactly how you feel!

I'm 50 and have been making £1 payments since the end of last year when I lost my job due to the recession.

I was looking at a DRO myself and it seemed as though there was some light at the end of the tunnel as according to myself and Experian my debts total around 13K, then I checked my Equifax report and according to them I owe around 16.5K PLUS a CCJ that I know nothing about!

Oh well, back to the beginning.....

Flowerpot_2

jenmary wrote: »

I wonder if anyone can give me advice? I have debts of £18000 which I can't repay on my wage. I have a minimum payment agreement with each of my creditors, and pay each of them £1/month. I can't improve on this unless I can find a better paid job, but have not been successful with this. What I am losing sleep about is, I am 56, and am really worried about how I will repay this when I have to retire, as my income will go down. I can't see how I will ever be able to pay off the debt, and just don't know what to do.
Help!!!!!

I'm 56 tomorrow jenmary :rolleyes:
I went BR in June & apart from the fact that my heart is leaking, my teeth are falling out & I"VE GIVEN UP SMOKING - I feel a whole heap better now than I did before I faced facts & began my BR journey:D
So my advice to you is - (after taking professional advice from one of the debt charities first of course :rolleyes:)........go for it girl!

FP x
'they' say that 60 is the new 40 anyhow LOL :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: