What do I do when the creditor is a friend?

Rosey_Future

Hi,

When a person gets beyond a point of "borrowing a fiver until Monday", there is generally a bigger problem.

I was being unrealistic by borrowing from Peter (and John, Fred and Mark) to pay Paul. No matter how good the intention originally, if you are caught in a debt spiral its often very difficult to keep to your word.

When my borrowing got really bad, I was borrowing from one friend to pay a payday loan, or borrowing a payday loan to pay a friend or another bill - but ultimately, if I need to borrow on top of my wages each month, then my outgoings exceed what I have coming in and it doesnt get better.

I could have saved my friends and myself a lot of heartache and grief if I had looked at this bigger picture in the first place. When I would borrow £100 from a friend I would think "its ok, I get paid next week and will pay them back then". But when next week came, all I had done is increased my monthly outgoings by £100. So if I needed £100 in March, where the hell did I think it was going to magically come from in April??

This is why for me it has been important to talk to people. I may have made promises beyond my means originally, but it was never my intention to not pay back - even though thats what eventually happened.

When I had one of my many conversations last week, one person said the same thing to me "Well I didnt really expect to get it back". I was initially quite hurt by the comment as it felt that my friend knew I wasnt reliable, but it just meant my friend was more realistic than me and knew if I was borrowing chunks of money from her, then I clearly had no reserves or other options. My situation was more obvious to her than it was to myself...

yabby

Hi in response to giving money for birthday collections at work, keep £5 in your desk at work for collections when you are asked to give money just give them the fiver and no more , if other people know you have only given that amount they might do the same next time who knows there could be more people in your department that cannot afford to give £10 or maybe don't want to. Where I work if there is a collection for whatever reason we put the money we want to give in an envolope and no one knows how much you give. Anyway I wish you well with your journey x

DreamerHelen

Hi There....I didn't want to "read and run"....

I wanted to say how brave I think you are for facing up to your debt problems and for having those conversations with people...I'm glad that the majority of them were understanding and I firmly believe that you will get yourself out of this month by month....and each month will get easier for you...

I recently went down the route of Payday Loans...thankfully I only took out two of them but it was two too many!! I'm now in the position of arranging to pay them back so much every week (I get paid weekly) and it's going to take me until August to pay them off!! What a waste!!

Anyway....I also wanted to say that it's not that difficult to set up your own DMP...I did and it worked for me....but if you are getting along with Step Change then stick with them as I believe they are very good at what they do...

Good Luck and I have subscribed to your Thread so hope to see lots more progress as the months go by and I'll pop in every now and again to give you some encouragement....

Rosey_Future

yabby wrote: »

Hi in response to giving money for birthday collections at work, keep £5 in your desk at work for collections

Thanks Yabby. This is a good idea. There is nothing worse than handing over the last few pounds you have because you feel shamed into it. The emergency £5 is a good idea.

Rosey_Future

DreamerHelen wrote: »

I firmly believe that you will get yourself out of this month by month....and each month will get easier for you...

Good Luck and I have subscribed to your Thread so hope to see lots more progress as the months go by and I'll pop in every now and again to give you some encouragement....

Thanks very much. It took a long time for me to get into this mess, so I need to appreciate it will take a while to get out. But knowing each month that things are getting a little better and that debts are being paid off will be encouraging. The way I look at it, from today onwards, things cannot get any worse (as long as I dont borrow another penny from anywhere).

I have found this site very encouraging and I will keep updating this thread to let you know about the journey.

My next payday is next week, so I can get rid of a few debts then (by keeping to the commitments I have made to my friends). The payday loans are going to get £1 a month for a while until I pay off my friends and colleagues. Then i can increase payments on the other debts later.

Will keep you informed...

Rosey_Future

D-Day approaches...

Its payday tomorrow so time to put my words into action. Feel a mixture of excitement and anxiety about getting paid. I have made the plan on paper of who I am going to pay tomorrow and have created a spreadsheet so I can tick off once people are paid.

Its going to take me a good few months to get all my friends and colleagues paid off and then I can focus on tackling the unsecured debt and payday loans. But it will feel good to be able to look people in the face again and not have to hide in corners.

I do acknowledge that merely giving back the money doesnt right the wrong and I will need to do some work on making amends. And more importantly rebuilding my reputation. The main way I can do this is to not borrow another penny.

I am in debt management so if i am struggling to survive, I can ask them to review my payments and outgoings etc. I do not intend to take out another penny in debt - not from a friend, colleague, payday loan - anyone.

I am currently preparing a set of envelopes with the names written on them so I can get them ready.

Well I will report back when the deeds are done tomorrow and let you know how it goes.

I cant believe the turnaround from the start of this thread, particularly as it has literally only been a matter of weeks since I was ready to throw in the towel (I had some very dark thoughts...)

Thanks for supporting me through this process. This site has been a God-send.

Palookaville

Rosey, just read all of this thread and I cannot believe how brave you have been to face up to your work colleagues like this. The shame and embarrassment is crippling, most definately.

In 2005 I was in debt to the tune of 38K and I felt I could not tell a single person about it, not my family or my friends.

When I met my partner in 2008, it soon became apparent that he was very good with money had savings etc and I still kept it quiet until we were about to move into rented accommodation in 2009 and the word credit check was uttered by the letting agent.
All the fear, shame and embarrassment came flooding back and I had to admit that I was not credit worthy to my partner.
Painful as it was to explain, I'm glad I did. The relief was somewhat amazing. I had been paying off the debt via a DMP and I wasn't even sure how much I still owed, I couldn't even face that.

My partner made me see how much I owed and I was really surprised as it was much less than what I thought it was.
He lent me the money to pay off the remaining balances which was about 12K, I then spent the next 2 years paying him back.
Had I still been in a DMP it would have finished at the beginning of 2012.

It was a long journey. At times I had ideas about going bankrupt but personally it wasn't for me. I'd had the money and I felt that paying it all back was the only way I could learn my lesson.

I just wanted to say that you will get through this. It might seem that at times that there's no light at the end of the tunnel but I can assure you there is.

Palookaville

Good luck tommorow.

HeadAboveWater

Payday :j:j

Thinking about you

brokeinlondon

Rosey I hope it went well! x