Old geezers and gal's close to retirement on dmp's.!!

SadieM_2

I felt much better this morning when I found this thread and realised it was not just the young that found themselves in trouble. Next week I will be 59 and my husband 58 and I was brought up to feel that by now we should be living comfortably and looking forward to retirement and certainly not struggling with debt. Some of the debt is due to enforced changes in employment and lower income and some is due to our own financial stupidity which makes it even worse.

We owe around 55K on Credit Cards which we are just about paying by robbing one for the other but even if we can keep this going for the next 6 years once we retire there will be no chance and the payments we are paying are only the interest. There is not enough equity in our house to make selling it viable and I feel we are not at that point where we have to do something drastic if I'm going to manage to sleep any time soon.

Any input would be appreciated.

dorisday

Hi Sadie and welcome
sorry to hear about your situation. Its much like mine but im 63 and single (widowed for 32 years) and also made some very stupid financial mistakes and again because of work (self employed) have seen my income drop by 75%. My debts were around £54000 some 12 years ago and got to a stage I just couldnt pay even the minimum. To cut a long story short - IVA route - lost £5000 I paid into and some rather dirty dealings of a financial advisor lost another £5000. I then decided to take charge myself and started a self organised DMP with the creditors or should I say DCA myself, that was 9 years ago and Im still paying the little I can afford. A couple I have taken the CCA route and no longer paying but the others I keep ploughing on but may go the CCA route with them. To be honest if I could manage to save for F & F I would go for that but Im still self employed and things arent going to well, so will just keep going the way im going.
I do think you need to sort this out now perhaps a DMP would work for you because the money you are paying over now is just been eaten up by interest.
Forgot to mention im 63 now and I shall be paying for another 24 years LOL:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:if I cant save for F & F
Anyhow you are in the right place for loads of help. Best of luck.