Best way forward with my debt?

noisyowls

Background: I'm 23, self-employed, suffer from a serious mental illness.

I borrowed £10,000 over two years from the Cooperative bank as a career development loan, and another another £5000 from RBS over five years as a graduate loan. I believe the interest on the Coop one works out somewhere around 6.6% once adjusted for the year during which the government covers the interest (originally 9.9% or similar), and the RBS loan is something like 2.5%. Both unsecured. I have no assets or savings.

I finished studying in November (I was supposed to finished in September, but had been granted more time because I'd been very unwell over the summer) and have been trying to work enough hours to cover my expenses and rent. I've just about managed this, but I did go over my agreed overdrafts with both banks. I became ill again, and ignored all letters from the banks (I can see now what a silly idea that is, but at the time my judgement was extremely compromised.) I returned to my flat after having spent xmas with my family, and, feeling better and more clear-headed, opened all the letters and tried to work out the situation. I am supposed to be paying Coop nearly £500 a month and RBS £150. Coop have served me with a default notice. I called both banks on Friday (I really struggle with phone calls because of anxiety, so this was a bit of a personal victory) and Coop were helpful, wiping off unarranged overdraft charges due in January, although they still want me to pay £40 worth of charges due in February. The career development loan department was closed as it was after 4pm, so I need to ring back and see whether the loan can be brought back under the bank's control and not passed on to a collections agency (this is how I understood the situation, I may be wrong.) RBS have not yet served a default. They asked me to try and work out my income and expenditure (tricky, when it's been very low the past few months due to health and variable anyway) so we can change the repayment schedule. They kept saying how willing they were to help me, which was nice.

I'm trying to work up the nerve to ring them both again today. I think I'll try and complete an SOA so I can have some idea of what I'm talking about the figures. I'm not good at keeping track of spending, but nor do I overspend badly on a regular basis.

If anybody has any words of advice, I'd be very grateful.

DS4215

If you want some impartial professional advice, try CCCS. They can point you in the right direction and help you to get back on track if you are struggling to make the payments.