I have come here to chew bubblegum and clear debt - and I'm all outta bubblegum AKA the £83,000 saga

Guybrush_Threepwood

Back in April of this year, I finally faced up to my debt. There's a longer tale to tell here (which I can go into on another post if people are interested), but for now, here's the facts.

Over the past 10-12 years, I have built up a fair amount of debt. Actually, a hell of a lot of debt.

Once I had finished counting, this was the final (scary) number:

£83,035.95

This comprised of:

Credit Cards (x6): £32,263.27
Overdrafts (x5): £4,917.50
Personal Loans (x4): £11,343.65
Payday and Short-Term Lenders (x6): £6,957.10
Store Credit & Finance Agreements (x6): £5,921.43
Bank of Mum & Dad (x1): £21,633.00

I had been hiding from this for a long, long time - but for a number of reasons, now is the time to tackle it head on.

In May of this year I had agreed to repayment plans with all 28 of my creditors. I'd opened numerous cases via Resolver relating to irresponsible lending and some of those have since reached the Financial Ombudsman stage.

As of October 2018, the current balance is:

£70,329.28

And the number of creditors has dropped from 28 to 19.

In five months I am proud to have reduced my debt by £12,706.67. Of this amount, £9,038.33 has been in repayments and £3,668.34 has been in refunds resulting from my Resolver and Financial Ombudsman cases.

Currently I have 8 or 9 Ombudsman cases pending and one refund of approx £1,500 against one of the short-term lenders that I should receive within the next couple of weeks (that was an FO case that was decided in my favour). This would take my debt under the £70,000 mark. Still a long way to go, but it would be good to see that number that once began with an '8' begin with a '6'.

I think it will be good for me to share my experience of how I got into this mess and how I am getting out of it, and hopefully it may help other people too.

All questions, comments and messages of encouragement are welcome!

Toomuchdebt

You've done amazingly well to reduce it so quickly so far!

[Deleted User]

That is an amazing start!

Good for you on getting the refunds you were due, that must feel great when you can reduce that from the amount owed.

Best of luck on the rest of your journey.

Dxxx

Guybrush_Threepwood

Thank you. It hasn't been easy!

Myself and my partner have a strict monthly budget and try to overpay where we can whilst still managing to save a little and have some semblance of a life

I'm aware there is a long, long way to go. I'm earmarking on average around £1,400 per month on debt repayments which would equate to another 4 years or so but I'm aiming to clear all but the largest debts within 2 years (May 2020). If I get any annual bonuses at work then that will help reduce the debt quicker. Also any further refunds from creditors who have lent 'irresponsibly' would go a way to help, though I am not counting on anything. I've had mixed results so far, including all of the following:

• Yes, we are sorry, we should not have loaned you this money. We will refund any interest and charges
• We don't think we did anything wrong, but we will refund some interest and charges as a 'goodwill' gesture
• It's not our fault. Goodbye.

I'm also seeing some gradual increases on my credit score, which at it's lowest point earlier this year was ZERO. Yep - Zero, Zilch, Nada.... I had no idea they could go THAT low. At the last check, between Noddle, Clearscore, Experian and the MSE Credit Club, it's somewhere between 200 and 450. Not brilliant, but it's nice to see I'm gradually repairing the damage.

Debtnomoreplease

Wow!!! LOVE your determination to get rid of this debt! Huge well done so far-you should be proud, huge achievement!!

Keep us updated.

Fabulous start!!

Guybrush_Threepwood

Deleted_User wrote: »

That is an amazing start!

Good for you on getting the refunds you were due, that must feel great when you can reduce that from the amount owed.

Best of luck on the rest of your journey.

Dxxx

Yep - I can't speak highly enough of the Resolver service. I've had mixed results with the Ombudsman, sometimes I think they struggle to understand the evidence I have provided, but it depends on who you get I suppose, and you can always appeal an adjudicator's decision and have an Ombudsman decide.

At the beginning of all this, I had never considered that some of the lenders should bear some of the responsibility. I considered it was all my fault, but there have been some clear cut cases in more recent times where some of the 'less reputable' companies should definitely NOT have provided any sort of credit to me, even though I asked for it...

Guybrush_Threepwood

Debtnomoreplease wrote: »

Wow!!! LOVE your determination to get rid of this debt! Huge well done so far-you should be proud, huge achievement!!

Keep us updated.

Fabulous start!!

Thank you! I'll share more of my story in coming days.

Guybrush_Threepwood

So how did I get here?

A bit about me: I’m 36 years old. I’ve worked in the same industry for the past 18 years and have worked my way up to a fairly senior position within my field. I’ve a decent salary and benefits and by rights, I should lead a relatively comfortable life financially.

However, for the past 15 years or so, what started as a hobby soon developed into something more, and has ruled the last 10-12 years of my life with a vice like grip.

I am a compulsive gambler.

Be it online casinos or the infamous FOBTs, pretty much every penny I have earned or borrowed has gone towards funding my gambling addiction. Somehow I always managed to find the money for my essential bills, but the level of debt I was incurring continued to rise and rise and rise. And all this was kept secret from my friends, my family and my partner. Nobody knew. Not a soul.

Earlier this year, when the addiction had reached its absolute peak, my close friends began to suspect something wasn’t right. They began to talk to each other and soon realised that I owed them all various amount of cash. I’d borrowed from all of my close friends and some family members and had sworn them all to secrecy. Each had been given a different reason as to why I needed the money, something wrong with the car, lost my bank card, victim of fraud... all lies.

Eventually everything came to a head. My friends and family staged an intervention of sorts to find out what was happening. I broke down and told them everything. Then came the hardest part - telling my wife. I’ve had this addiction since before we met. I’d been lying to her from the moment we met. I will forever be grateful that her reaction was “we can get through this” - when she’d have been more than entitled to walk away.

Almost immediately she found the details of my local Gamblers Anonymous (GA) meeting. We went to the first meeting that very week (she attends the ‘GamAnon’ meeting for family and friends of compulsive gamblers that run alongside some GA meetings).

I’ve never looked back. I’ve been to my meeting every week for the past 5 months and cannot tell you how much my life has improved. It is an amazing fellowship. The debt is gradually going down and I’ve not had a bet of any kind in 5 months. But most of all, the biggest relief is that I don’t have to lie to my friends and family any more.

I’m very early into my recovery but things are going well. Yes, there are good days and bad. Sometimes I feel overwhelming guilt for all of the damage I have caused, not only to myself, but to those around me. But, as we’re told in GA - it’s a ‘one day at a time’ programme.

I know this is a debt forum, not an addiction forum - but I wanted to share this as it is the root cause of all of my debt, and I know there are others out there in a similar situation to where I am now(and where I have been). No matter how bad it gets, you can always turn things around.

I am now able to focus on what matters in life. Reducing my debt is just one of my goals. Without gambling in my life, I feel there is so much more I can achieve.

I’m happy to discuss more if anybody has any thoughts, comments or questions. Feel free to PM me also if I can help in any way if you are in the same boat or know somebody that is.

redofromstart

Just dropping in to say happy new diary, and good luck with it.

Monkey Island was a great game

Guybrush_Threepwood

Yes it was :-)

redmel1621

Wow! Well done for sharing and I wish you all the luck in the world. I also want to say that your wife is an absolute star for standing by and supporting you.

I will definitely be keeping an eye on how things are going for you.