How did u get into debt ?

preciousillusions

early use of many credit and store cards, bulimia, desperation led to withdrawing money on cards, reliance on a student overdraft and to the worst of the worst with pay-day loans.

forgotmyname

Using credit cards to stay afloat, When they bring in rules to stop me trying to earn a living.

HGV driver Mon-Fri, I used to have a weekend job delivering vehicles to and from MOT/Service.

Rules changed and i could no longer do that, Big drop in income. Car damaged several times which
added a large chunk to the CC bills. Then to top it off. Illness.

Sharon87

Mine's a long story so will sum it up

Uni - overdraft
Moving house temporarily being unemployed, not being able to get Housing Benefit for 2 months
Crap job on minimum wage, not being able to pay any money off debt until I started work in TV
Got a credit card on 0%, spent on it to tried to use my actual money to pay off overdraft - didn't work, bought a laptop and went on holiday (first one in years)
House got broken into, had to replace £500 worth of stuff and need to repay it within 9 months or get charged with LOADS of interest.
Festival tickets for Reading

Now I'm saving to pay off debts and learn to drive. I've just realised how easy it is to save when I earn what I am, even though it's not steady work.

Ravanelli

Mines simple, i was spending more than i was earning.

My own stupidity, came to ahead when i went onto half pay at work due to a operation that kept me off work for 6 months, but it started way before that with bank loans, catalogues, store cards and credit cards and only paying the minimum for about 4 years, the debts got higher and higher and so did the credit limits.

My main addiction was gadgets and computers, always had to have the latest and newest. The wife always wanted nice and expensive things for the home.

Now we are both cured. :A

davidjwest

I lost my job 3 times just after the last recession, '94-'96, made redundant each time through no fault of my own. I lived on my credit cards for a few months.

I'm now going through a divorce and at one stage had around £40k of debt (marital debt, expenses of having to live on my own etc) but had my LB nearly two years ago and debt now down to around £25k, hope to be free in around 3 years time.

Jinx

I was single mum at college. coping fine financially and my bruv decided to get married abroad. Got a credit card to pay for the flights and spending money. Snowballed from there - holiday each year when was still in debt, gadding about the country. Have paid back waaaay more than I ever borrowed due to the joys of compound interest.

Never again!!! Oh and the wedding was called off; got a hol but no wedding.

bumblingbea

Had manageable(?) debts until a couple of years ago. Then cancer struck. Had the choice between paying off cc debts & going on benefits; or helping sons at uni & living off cards & savings. I chose the latter.

My signature shows the outcome!!

On the positive side....I'm still alive, in remission, my boys are getting full grants etc & supporting themselves, & my LBM has hit with a bang (better now than lighting up when I hit 60).

meerkat2007

Started in the 80s with an £800 overdraft, peaked in about 2000/2001 at around £92k (including the mortgage I had to take out to clear an accumulation of debt), currently at approximately £37k, estimated debt and mortgage-free date of July 2015.

The initial overdraft was taken out to buy an electronic typewriter, in advance of receiving an inheritance of about £2,500. I did it because I was naive about personal finance, and my mother encouraged me to do it - looking back, she had an appalling record at handling money and was the last person I should have taken any advice from, but at the time, I didn't know any better. I incurred further debt to consolidate existing debt, to buy "stuff" for mum to try and keep her happy (talk about attempting the impossible!) and to buy the occasional treat for me (it was my salary paying for the new loan after all, so I was entitled! :eek:)

The house of cards fell apart when I was unemployed for about 7/8 months in 2000 (lived on credit cards), and when I finally got a job, I was on about two-thirds of the salary I had been on.

If I could go back to the day I signed for that overdraft, I'd slap myself silly, and tell myself that no matter how much whining she did, it was not my job to keep mum happy with "stuff"!

bluebottle71

We had credit cards, store cards, loans and overdrafts. We were able to make the payments when we took out these debts.

Then, just after we were married, my wife hurt her back and was unable to work. That's when we got behind in our payments. It was the most stressful, scary time of our lives. In panic we turned to a 'debt help' agency called Baines and Ernst. We thought having someone on our side would help, but they got us into deeper debt by their actions or lack of them in many cases and charged us for the privilege. Thanks to them I also ended up with 2 CCJs
.
Eventually we found out about the Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) who did the job for free and properly too.
We have been managing our debts ourselves now for nearly 8 years now and have now only 3 creditors left to pay off.

We have had all the threats of legal action, bailiffs, CCJs etc, but we know where we stand and so it doesn't scare us any more.

kdenty

I was a single girl living in a £500 rental with about £1000 cash spare each month. Bought lovely things, paid off student debt, saved for a deposit towards a house.

Then met my partner and we bought the house. Carried on with previous lifestyle/spending. But my partners income low compared to mine. The living costs are now x2 and the morgage payments double the cost of renting.

Spent £10,000 modernising house (needed lots of plaster, furniture, new kitchen, new toilet, damp problem fixing, drafty windows fixing).
Spent too much on cars (at one point we had my sports car, his old sports car he had when we met costing money to keep it alive as it was old, a runaround and a small motorbike). Also bought all the gadgets (xbox, playstation, big telly, PC). Spending more than income and a lot went on credit cards.

So we look well off but the credit card companies own most of our stuff when you think about it. We now have 2 sensible vehicles but partners job situation got worse too. Its our own fault! I feel embarrassed to put all of this.

Luckily had the LBM just before it got unmanagable and getting a good grip of it all now and finally making some leeway to reverse the situation.