Time to face up to it, appreciate advice.

thread_astaire

I got made redundant in 2005, at the time i was sufferning serious mental health problems, i fell into debt as i was unable to face the world. I was pretty financially comfotable b4 all this. I had a few grand in savings, a nice car and 2 credit cards i never used. I had social anxiety to such a level it was debilitating, i just locked myself away, i was not on benifits & had no income so i used my saving & redundancy, when that went i sold my car(for less than it was worth), & then was living on my credit cards, eventually i put a claim in for jsa but still had not sorting housing benifit.
I did eventually sort out housing benifit but i was already in a fair bit of debt & struggling to make my payments. I wrote to hsbc explaing that i could't make the minimum payments after recieving threatening calls & letters from them. They agreed for me to pay smaller instalments & i guess sold my dept off to a dca. Eventualy i found the courage to see a doctor & to talk about my problems, my health eventualy improved & i found work & starting to lead more of a normal life again. For the last 3 years i've been working but now i think its time i faced my debts as im not paying them off, although ive paid a loan off i've had my head in the sand with my credit cards a bit. Its time to pay them off & move on with my life.
After looking into things recently, things are not as bad as i thought, i owe on 2 credit cards 2500 with capital one. I pay 100 a month to capital one, most of that is interest & ppi, so need to step these payments up. Anyone know if i could make a claim for with my ppi for past events? If not i need to ditch it. I don't know how much i owe with the dca formally a hsbc card, i pay 37 a month to MET COLL SER who i assume is the dca part of hsbc. I owed 4000k & have been paying the 37 for 3years 3months, im not sure if i pay interest or what, i'm afraid to call them incase hey start harrassing me. If i put the effort in i know i can pay it off but i know it means a life of missery for several years. Its not often i can buy anything nice or go out but i will have to cut those things out completely.
Its seems strange now to look back at the way i was thinking & i'm annoyed with myself, that not only have i got myself into debt but i lost thousands of pounds of my own money as well but at the time i was just desperate & couldn't face anything.

EssexHebridean

No point in being annoyed with yourself now - put those feelings behind you and move on. Illness is illness, and there was little you could have done to change things there, however, by as you say facing things now and dealing with them, you can improve things from here on in, well well done for having your light bulb moment! :T

Any chance you can reclaim the PPI? Might be worth having a look - I very much doubt you would be able to make a retrospective claim on it, although someone more qualified than I to comment will hopefully clarify that one way or the other. Take a look at the main site for details on reclaiming and see if there is any likelihood of being able to reclaim anyway, and remember you have nothing to lose by trying.

First things first though you need an accurate picture of where you stand so I would suggest writing to the DCA regarding the HSBC debt and asking them for an up to date statement of where you are with it. For safety's sake don't sign the letter - just write/type your name at the end. Don't put a phone number on either, and confirm in that letter that all correspondence is to continue to be in writing.

If you feel comfortable doing so, why not post your Statement of Affairs up on here so people can cast an eye over it and suggest places you might be able to make savings? You'd be amazed the things that somebody else will spot that you yourself would miss! As for "A life of misery" - not round here, we don't do that! You need to have some fun in your life as well otherwise it all just gets too much and that tends to be where people take their eye off the ball.

Good luck!