New Year Still Broke

tigerfeet2006

suzzybabe wrote: »

The papers are work related As I said I have seen them allowed more times than not but it will depend on the OR. Leave it and make a note at the back of the form that they are for work journals.

That is fully comp insurance Well done!

The life insurance is whole life It has no surrender value It will have eventually and when it does the OR will want dibs on it, no matter when. There are ways round this but that can be covered later.

No entertainment????? eek 'fraid knot

Thanks for a very constructive reply No problemo

Car was a personal loan Right then the loan will fall into the BR and the OR will take the car and sell it. He may give you some money towards a new car but it will depend on the nessecity of you having a car to get to work. If you are on a Bus route and you can get to work with in the hour then you may have a fight on your hands but if you have to have the car to get to work because there is no other viable alternitive then you will be able to have a car. If it is not exempt then you can put travel cost down.

Petrol was a rough estimate do you think I could increase it a tad? How far is it to get to work? With petrol at around £1.12 a litre :eek: you may find it is more. My DH does a 40 mile round trip a day and we spend about £200+ a month on petrol.

Much Kudos

I luv Mse

Suzy x

At the moment the CAB have around a 4 week wait to see a specialist debt advisor. Most CAB's operate a go in and sit down and wait for an advisor to see you. Have a interview to see how much they can help you currently and then make an appointment with the debt advisor. I know with some CAB's it has been 6 week plus. If you can't get through to them on the phone, try giving National Debtline a ring. and see what they have to say, they will give advice on first phone call. Though they to are busy so take quite a while to answer so be patient.

Have a read of the Bankruptcy Help sticky, there is a lot of good links and info on the first post.

curly04

slummymummyof3 wrote: »

Am praying for lots of snow to arrive overnight - fingers crossed! Will check in on you tomorrow night after I have finished marking and planning.

Night

Its your fault for my 13 inches of snow, and me not being able to get to work

MicheH

Phew, just catching up with your thread this morning! You've come a long way that's for sure. I'm not going to pass judgement on what I think you should do, it's non of my business at all, but let me tell you that my thoughts are for your wellbeing only, not for creditors or moral views.

I totally understand why you want to go BR, it is such a wake up call and a lesson learned, would I have learned the lessons if I hadn't gone BR? I really don't think so to be honest but being in this 'place' I am now I would have loved the oportunity to be a frugal as I possibly could and worked through it.. live like I do now without the weight of bankruptcy. Let me tell you (from a girl who liked the nice things in life) I now do without or find cheaper alternatives, make things, blag things, homebake and cook. It is such a rush to live like this, a real eyeopener to the real world but the most important thing I get from it is control and choice. I'm no longer in need of material things to make my way in the world and no longer worry about what people think of me but unfortunately I'm a bankrupt and will have to live with this skeleton for the rest of my life. IF there was an alternative, speaking as a bankrupt I would have gone for that alternative, I would have. We're all so different, we really are. For the reasons i've written about above I can never regret bankruptcy because it's given me my life back. By that I mean no stress, of course I do, but it's deeper than that, I know the meaning of life now, what's important, what's the core 'me' not the materialistic me and I'm in control of the decisions I make now. I'm in control. Again, would I have found this out on a DMP if I could have done one, I can't really answer that but my instinct is telling me probably not.

There's many of us here who struggle with our health, I'm lucky in the respect that I have no health issues but I have to work hard on anxiety and battles in my head with myself really. I'm dealing with it without medical help as I that's the choice I have made. In thinking about what is important to me it's my happines, my families happiness. Now you have to think about what is important to you. Your own space is important to you I can tell, so you should keep it that way. I don't believe in making sacrifices that will ultimately make you unhappy and that is a sacrifice that is going one step too far. You shouldn't have to feel like you have to justify having an office space or your choice of living in a nice safe area. Great for you that you have got your space and you are happy. Do what makes you happy in your life, tittle with anyone who wants to judge you. We all have our thoughts on what you should do, can give you advice but what we really need to do is provide you with support while you make your way out of debt - that's the big picture here, a lot of debt. Great to see you've already met the nice folk on here

curly04

Cars are really grey area's, and all depends on the OR.

I have a mobility vehicle and the OR kept saying I could use public transport for £55 per month rather than about £190 for petrol. to get to work would be 2-3 buses and a tram, with about a half a mile walk toget to all the different stops. I told him how disabled I was including the fact I took 51 doses on medication (on a good day) and he said he would e-mail me.

I then got an e-mail asking me how disabled I was. - I was not happy to say the least.

I sent him and e-mail back saying (Yes in capitals because i wanted to shout at him)

"I CAN'T EVEN WALK AS FAR AS A BUS STOP, I HAVE TO USE A WHEELCHAIR BECAUSE OF MY BONE PROBLEM, BUT I HAVE A CHEST PROBLEM SO CAN'T PUSH MYSELF THAT FAR. I WORK IN AGONY EVERY DAY USING A WALKING STICK. WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO GO TO WORK IN MY CAR, MEANING I CAN PAY MY OWN WAY AFTER BR, INC PAY MY IPA, OR WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO QUIT MY JOB AND SIT AT HOME BECAUSE I CAN'T GET THERE?"

Got an e-mail back saying they will reasses the petrol spenditure in a few months and told me to keep receipts

Hope they let you keep yours, I think my guy was new as he cocked up a few things and the someone took over my case.

InaPickle

Hi Suzy,

I have read your thread with interest, and I'm going to be fairly blunt, albeit with the best of intentions:

I’m glad to see that you have made a budget and are planning on a spending dairy, but I think you need to think really, really hard about your situation. You used the word ‘spendaholic’ in a previous post. Is that just a gratuitous phrase, or do you honestly think you might have a problem? If so, going bankrupt will only solve your problem for the minute while you have no credit available, but as soon as you can get hold of some (even if it takes 5 years or so), the chances are that you will get yourself into EXACTLY the same situation as per your track record. You are only making efforts to put your situation right now as things are unmanageable and are about to come crashing round you ears. You have said yourself that you want to go ‘credit cold turkey’, but what will happen when someone eventually offers you more credit? Will you have the willpower to resist? You have been here before, been bailed out by those who love you, and have made exactly the same mistakes again. I would bet that there's every chance that you will do it again as well, unless you get your head around what makes you spend like this.

I’m sorry if this sounds harsh as it‘s not meant to be rude, horrible or judgemental, and if I’ve got you wrong then I apologise unreservedly, but you sound very much like a university friend of mine who I would have loved to help, only she cannot see that she has/had a problem. (We no longer see each other very often as we have both taken different career paths, but I don’t think she got to the root of her problem). Miss X (her pseudonym) was/is a lovely girl; academically intelligent (you said you're a research scientist, right?), funny and friendly, who was not in control of her spending in the slightest. She kept getting herself into financial scrapes, and getting mummy and daddy to bail her out, firstly with smaller regular sums on top the already generous handouts she was getting off them while at uni, and them then paying off parts of her overdraft and eventually clearing it when it wasn't too bad for a Christmas present etc. after she had graduated. She eventually got to the end of all her available credit and then when her gran died, she left her some money which she then used part of to pay off her debts. This got her out of that mess in much the same way your parents bailing you out got you out of yours, but to the best of my knowledge she learnt no lesson about handling her money as her inheritance fell into her lap at just the right moment to make the whole mess ‘go away‘.

I met Miss X about 6 months later, and she is racking debts up again as clearing them didn‘t cost her much in the way of worry/stress to teach her that getting herself into such messes was best avoided, or how to handle her money. On the overall scale of financial trouble, I think she is one rung above you as she probably owes less than you (but she also earns a hell of a lot less), yet due to the way she spends money, as soon as more credit becomes available to her, I'm 99% certain she will take it and find a way to justify it to herself instead of sorting out her attitude to money and getting it sorted once and for all. The credit will come: she is about to qualify in a profession which pays far and above what she was earning in her last job, and I’m fairly certain the train wreck will arrive. The main problem is that she doesn't see that there is a problem - not just with how much she spends or even what on, but also why she spends it, and until she does, she can't solve it.

A mutual friend and I became very worried about her once during our time at uni in a foreign country and at the behest of the other friend we went to speak to the woman who was in charge of our year. We explained the problem (spending money like it's going out of fashion on clothes/accessories/things to decorate her room which she doesn't even like that much (and was hiding from us all unless we commented on ’Oh, that’s a nice skirt, is it new?’ ‘Oh, yeah, I got it yesterday.’), flights back home to see her boyfriend and going out etc,), therefore leaving herself little money to live on which meant she then had to ask mum and dad for money to cover the communal bills etc., even spending the last of her money on a lamp she didn't need in a different city (and I quote 'I have a sh*tload of lamps I don‘t need‘) when she was sharing a hotel room with me and knew there was a fair chance her debit card wasn’t working and then, when she had no money because it wouldn‘t, turning around and asking me if I would pay our hotel bill, knowing that I had no choice. She didn’t see a problem with that as she just rang mum and dad up for more money when she got back home, but I saw a real problem with her way of thinking as we would have been up poo creek had I not had enough on my to cover both halves of the hotel bill with me.

*Breathes*

Anyway…the teacher said she would speak to her daughter, a doctor, that night, to see if she thought that there was anything more than financial mismanagement behind it. The next day, she spoke to us and told us that her daughter seemed to think that Miss X had a real problem, which needed help. The daughter’s summary was that Miss X was trying to construct her identity around the things that she bought as she felt something was missing in her life in the same way that anorexics and bulimics try to control their eating as a way of bringing control they feel they are missing back into their lives. She said that it was virtually impossible to make her see that she had a problem in the same way that you can’t tell someone that they are anorexic/bulimic/alcoholic: she would eventually realise when there was no-one left to bail her out and something big (like a car or house being repossessed) happened. On MSE, we call it ‘the light bulb moment’.

Here endeth the tale of Miss X: it’s a true one, and Miss X is still merrily lurching from one financial disaster to another. I don’t know if you see anything of yourself in Miss X, but if you do, I suggest that BR will only act as a temporary patch over your problems until you get your head around the reasons for your spending. If so, it begs the question, will you realise what makes you get into these scrapes time and time again so that you can avoid them a fourth time?

I remember reading an article in a magazine about a girl similar to Miss X who got herself into a staggeringly stupid amount of debt buying all kinds of designer handbags etc. simply because she felt she was lacking something in her life, although she didn’t realise it at the time. She ended up telling her dad the whole situation and being referred to a psychologist/counsellor who helped her understand why her financial habits were what they were. The chances of finding this article, even online, are slim as it really was years ago, but I clearly remember her saying that after leaving the first session she ‘felt as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders’ and that she felt as though she understood the root of her spending habits for the first time. I ripped it out of the magazine in the hope that I could give it to Miss X, but then I realised…you can’t help someone who doesn’t realise that they have a problem

Best of luck, Suzy. I really mean that. If I’ve got you wrong, once again, my apologies, but the above is only meant to help you. If there are any parallels between you and Miss X, I hope you see them in order to help yourself. If I can help at all (I’m no expert about DMPs and BRs, but I’m a mean old-style cleaner, cook and cost-cutter), then I would be delighted to do so. Just holler.

Paying off your debts will be stressful, but so will going bankrupt. Although every case is different, read around here and some of the stories where some people have paid off some truly staggering amounts of debt with some perseverance, cost-cutting, ingenuity and a bit of hard work. You would have to curb your existing lifestyle in order to do so, but to be honest, you are going to have to do that, whichever route you take. If it is possible for you to not go bankrupt you should be able to keep your car, but you will need to be strict in your spending in order to budget for the expenses it entails.

You are in a bad situation, but people here do want to help as none of us are perfect. However, it would be a real shame for you to go through all this one way or another and maybe not get to the real root of the problem.

All in all, if I’m honest, the feeling of being back in control of your life and finances is far better than any new pair of shoes ever could be. I hope you get to feel that financial zen sometime soon.

P.S.

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/whatson/bbc-three-spendaholics-feature-1409.html There's a dude on this programme who helps people see the error of their spending ways. I'm not suggesting apply!


http://www.benjaminfry.co.uk/index.html ( Here's the dude. I’m not suggesting him, but someone who does a similar thing if you think it would help figure things out.)

suzzybabe

Wow Mse friends What can I say????

Firstly today I made an appt at the CAB for next week to see a specialist debt advisor.
Secondly I have started my spending diary

Pickle what a fabulous piece of writing Do you know me? I am Miss X or as near to her as I can tell.

I think we all feel the need to repeat what is familiar - even if it is bad for us- In my case the spending the selfishness the
incessant self-regard.

I am at crisis point at the moment and feel Br is the answer but I agree only in the short term

You are very perceptive to recognise under all my layers of apparent 'intelligence' 'happiness' and 'sophistication' I am a deeply wounded, angry being who feels the need to replicate this vicious circle time and again.

Now I am beginning to sound maudlin

Your links seem very interesting I don't watch much television mainly Discovery Channel so I have never seen this

Once again many thanks for taking a chunk out of you day to help a complete stranger a good samaritan indeed

A very emotional

Suzy x

I don't know how everyone else feels but I am finding these boards quite cathartic I don't feel so weighed down by my debts. I did some good work today for the first time in an age.

Even after only 48 hours I am ashamed of the puerility of my OP

Humblest apologies

Shoe_Gal

Hi

Have read through your thread, and a lot of it strikes a chord. I had my lightbulb moment about 12 months ago and am now doing a self-managed DMP. I can honestly say it's the best thing I ever did - and I still have a (scaled down) social life

I don't know much about BR but it sounds like you have been given some good advice

Good luck, take care
Shoe Gal x

fiveyearplan

suzzybabe wrote: »

Even after only 48 hours I am ashamed of the purility of my OP

Humblest apologies

No need to apologise for your first post, you came here with a genuine question and it was answered.

I don't know why it is only now that I've seen this thread but I would urge you to reconsider BR and get some counselling on your need to shop/spend, it is an addiction and can be treated. I say that will all sincerity. IMO going BR will not solve your spending problem, you may find it difficult to get credit but we've seen people on her do it. If you're allowed a car on your SOA it certainly won't be the one you're driving now. I would re-consider a DMP but whatever you decide, we are here to give you the support you need.

InaPickle

suzzybabe wrote: »

Firstly today I made an appt at the CAB for next week to see a specialist debt advisor.

Secondly I have started my spending diary

Pickle what a fabulous piece of writing Do you know me? I am Miss X or as near to her as I can tell.

I think we all feel the need to repeat what is familiar - even if it is bad for us- In my case the spending the selfishness the incessant self-regard.

I am at crisis point at the moment and feel Br is the answer but I agree only in the short term

You are very perceptive to recognise under all my layers of apparent 'intelligence' 'happiness' and 'sophistication' I am a deeply wounded, angry being who feels the need to replicate this vicious circle time and again.

Now I am beginning to sound maudlin

Your links seem very interesting I don't watch much television mainly Discovery Channel so I have never seen this

Once again many thanks for taking a chunk out of you day to help a complete stranger a good samaritan indeed

A very emotional

Suzy x

I don't know how everyone else feels but I am finding these boards quite cathartic I don't feel so weighed down by my debts. I did some good work today for the first time in an age.

Even after only 48 hours I am ashamed of the puerility of my OP

Humblest apologies

Rightyho, well, firstly I'm glad you are not angry at what I wrote and writing a stinging reply - I was half-certain that might happen! :eek:

Secondly, it seems as though you are starting to realise that there is more to this than just a case of 'head in the clouds' syndrome. Well done, that's not easy. :T

Thirdly, well done on getting an appointment with the CAB. You are making steps in the right direction.

With regard to the show I provided you links to, I've only seen one or two episodes myself, but it does the job with regard to helping people learn to control their money and realise why they spend the way they do. It's very positive because it enables them to focus on the goals they really want in life, but can't have due to their current financial situation. Perhaps you dream of one day buying a house, but know that that's not a realistic option right now. It could be (or whatever other wish you have could be), one day relatively soon once you have dealt with your existing problems. Perhaps you could find a person like the man in that link in you local area who can help find your focus and deal with anything else that's underlying. Whatever method you use to get debt free will take time, one way or another, but how you get there is your choice.

Thirdly, I really, really recommend reading some of the debt-free diaries on this board. There are some staggering stories of people coming back from levels of debt I would have previously considered impossible (and by that I meean £100K+). One particularly amazing story is that of a lady called Hypno06 who now owes less than £10K unsecured on top of her mortgage, from a start of well over £100K.(http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2172991) Being on this site has made me realise that just about anything is possible, if you change your mental attitude to money (and reading these stories really does do that). In my personal case, I had a year or so of earning a really, really, really small amount of money. I was very careful as to what I spent as I am normally very careful with cash, but as I was studying, when I got to the last few months I became incautious, reasoning that I would be working full-time within a month or so and therefore would easily be able to repay anything I spent on my CC. To cut a long story short things went on longer than they should have done, and that few hundred pounds got nearer to a few thousand, and so I have set to pay it off, doing rather better than I ever could have expected now that my mindset has changed. Check me out at http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1917515&highlight=inapickle+getting+out+pickle. You have a lot of time before that next CAB appointment and if you start to shift your mindset between now and then, you could potentially pay off your debts without resorting to BR, which would give you more leeway to keep your car and even enjoy a scaled-back social life. The only thing is that no-one else can make you see the way you treat money in a different way, although we can definitely point you in the right direction!

As for regard to the 'underlying behaviour' you mentioned, I think it would be good for you to get some help to address it so that even if you do go with a BR you won't fall into the same trap again. If you do try to create your own DMP (which I think you might be able to do given a very, very quick look at your finances) I think it would be an integral part of getting you back on your feet again. Spend time here, see stories of people who have come back from even worse positions than you are in and see if you can see yourself doing the same.

Good luck! :T

slummymummyof3

curly04 wrote: »

Its your fault for my 13 inches of snow, and me not being able to get to work

Did you not want a snow day then?

Well it might be 24 hours later than I had hoped for but it looks like my prayers are going to be answered with 16 inches or so of snow forecast here - yey! One good thing about being a teacher is the snow days!!! Currently laying thick and fast.....bring it on.