Help! I feel as though I am drowning in debt

joee

Hello,

I am new to this forum and I apologise if this is in the wrong forum, please feel free to move this.

I feel as though I am sinking in debt, it is like in the past month or so Ihave realised the true amount and the impact of the debt I am in. I was signedoff of work for two and a half months due to a mental breakdown and this debtis not helping but I am at a real loss of what to do, I have been trying tocontact my local citizens advice bureau for the last week but when I have rungthe lines have been busy. I guess I should list my debts here –

Personal Loan – borrowed £7,500 over 24 months and have paid 8 months of instalments
Credit card – spent £2,250 and this is pretty much my limit
Catalogue 1 - £1,040 monthly payment of £112 – I phoned them last month to sortout a lower payment which was the £112 but I have had to miss this month
Catalogue 2 - £950 monthlypayment approximately £80. I think that I have PPI onthis and I did not claim for the payments I had made when I was off sick
Short – term money lender - £271 (including interest) to be repaid thebeginning of next month

Any help, advice or reassuring word would be so appreciated now

Lensman_2

Well done for posting, especially when you are down.

Please see my signature for contact details. I would start with Citizen's Advice - I have had the best advice from them. Any one of them can give you good, professional advice though.

As you go through your journey you will find out about how you can turn chaos in to a structured system of payments that gets it under control.

I would recommend you start with a Google search for "priority debts" if you do not already understand what these are. You didn't mention arrears for council tax, gas, electric etc. If these are up to date very well done.

Lastly congratulations on having the courage to post up. Probably the hardest step is the starting one and you just did that. Well done.

And good luck.

joee

Hi Lensman,

Thank you for replying to me so quickly, sorry I forgot about Rent that is the one thing I am up to date with. I have looked at priority debts and I don't feel that my debts belong in this category, which I guess is a good thing right but I am wondering why to go from here.

I guess I am glad that I am facing with demand letters yet or things related to going to court. I just hope things will become clearer in the next few days

Thanks again

sistafromanothermista

:wave: and welcome to the board. You've done a brave thing facing up to the situation. If you post up your SOA found on a sticky for newbies at the top of the page we can see where you may be able to cut back on expenses. Citizens advice and Well done

Depth_Charge

joee wrote: »

Hello,

I am new to this forum and I apologise if this is in the wrong forum, please feel free to move this.

I feel as though I am sinking in debt, it is like in the past month or so Ihave realised the true amount and the impact of the debt I am in. I was signedoff of work for two and a half months due to a mental breakdown and this debtis not helping but I am at a real loss of what to do, I have been trying tocontact my local citizens advice bureau for the last week but when I have rungthe lines have been busy. I guess I should list my debts here –

Personal Loan – borrowed £7,500 over 24 months and have paid 8 months of instalments
Credit card – spent £2,250 and this is pretty much my limit
Catalogue 1 - £1,040 monthly payment of £112 – I phoned them last month to sortout a lower payment which was the £112 but I have had to miss this month
Catalogue 2 - £950 monthlypayment approximately £80. I think that I have PPI onthis and I did not claim for the payments I had made when I was off sick
Short – term money lender - £271 (including interest) to be repaid thebeginning of next month

Any help, advice or reassuring word would be so appreciated now

Hi

Yes, putting up your SOA (if possible) should help

Might also be worth having a look through the CItizens Advice Bureau Online Debt Remedy / Information / DMP resource tool below, it might be a start to giving you some pointers etc

http://www.mymoney.nedcab.org.uk/moneyadvice/

You could also try ringing CCCS or National Debtline if you cannot get through to the CAB

fatbelly

Hi joee

Good advice on this thread so far.

The SoA calculator is here:

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

That will help enormously in making comments on the way forward for you.

Don't give up on the CAB. The phone systems can be a nightmare to get through on. If you send a letter or better still drop in a letter they should phone you back. From what you say it sounds like your local bureau doesn't have drop-ins but you can check here:

http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/getadvice.htm#txt_getadvice_header-Anchor-search

but if this doesn't work, CCCS, Payplan and National Debtline are reliable sources of fee-free advice

Shain

Well done joee - this is a welcoming place! You seem to have a good handle on how much you owe and you're facing up to it. You'd be amazed how many people don't know how much they even owe. And well done on keeping up with your rent!

From your list, I would be tempted to put everything possible into getting the short-term loan paid off - I suspect that's the one with the highest interest rate and the least flexible lender. The way I dealt with it was to list my debts in order of highest rate of interest to lowest and then paid the minimum off the others and everything I possibly could off the most expensive.

I found the CAB helpful to negotiate with lenders on my behalf - it seemed to show I was taking it seriously. Some lenders will freeze the interest on the money you owe, some will let you take a break from payments. That depends on being seen to tackle your financial problems, which is where CAB can be useful.

There are lots of money-saving tips here on the forums - it helps to try to think of it as a game, albeit one with a serious purpose! You can challenge yourself in lots of bonkers ways!

The DWP's on-line benefits checker is useful to just make sure you're getting all the benefits you're entitled to. Alas, you may well find out you can't get any more help (but worth a try).

Good luck!

joee

Hey guys,

Firstly I would like to apologise for not replying here sooner, I have readall of your kind replies and I am so overwhelmed in a good way. A lot haschanged in the last year – the bad stuff first – I became ill from a mixture ofphysical illness, numerous acts of violence and an emotional breakdown, all ofthis meant that I was off work for four months and then had a staged returnback to work.

Now the good news I have got myself a bit more sorted physically I am muchbetter, I have got support for emotional problems and the best news is that hashelped me to heal is that I was able to set up a DMP with step change and Ihave managed to clear 48.428%.

Anyways I just wanted / needed to check in here, thanks for listening and beinghere.

Heffi1

That is great news to hear Joee, Stepchange are good at helping when you can't seem to see what to do, they take all of the stress out of things for you, and well done on paying back almost half of what you owed, you will be debt free in no time if you carry on like this.

It is always nice to hear when things are going well after a long time away, keep on popping back in for some support if you need it.

fatbelly

Nice to hear from you, Joee

asparagus1968

wow, well done for getting help and sorting yourself out, especially with all the other stuff going on.
really great news