On being the angel on my own shoulder

karigan_2

Been reading this forum for months now and finally decided to start my own diary.

Due to a series of terrible choices I made in my 20s that I might go into another time, I dug myself into £43,650 of debt. That number sounds insane and it's a huge regret that I don't have anything substantial to show for it. £40k would have bought me a house. What an idiot.

My debt can be broken down into the following chunks;
£22,541 which is on a DMP with Stepchange. This is broken down into;
HSBC loan- £12,528
HSBC credit card- £3,163
HSBC overdraft- £4,329
Very- £1,204
Argos- £342
Barclaycard credit card- £537
Capital one credit card- £432

This has run since May 2019- paying £352 each month and I have so far paid off £2,112 and I will be debt free in March 2025 (but in reality sooner because my car finance finishes in May 2023 and I will be able to put £180 each month additionally towards my DMP so I optimistically reckon I will be out of debt by mid 2024.

Additional to this staggering amount of debt, I also owe just shy of £9000 on car finance and £2,300 to my uncle and £4000 to my dad. They were incredibly generous and paid this out to settle additional debts I had. I currently pay my uncle back £100 a month and will start paying my dad back in Feb 2020 (but in slightly positive news I will have a pay rise the same month and should be getting at least another £250-£300 a month minimum so that should all be doable.

Finally and the beginning of why I am so ashamed of myself, I also owe my husband £4400 for a credit card of his I fraudulently ran up debts on without his knowledge.

As much as it's a struggle and I'm living really frugally and on a very tight budget, I feel happy that at least it's now honest money. If I'm spending then it's money I've earned myself or when I only have a small amount of money in the bank, it's at least in the black rather than tens of thousands in the red. I'm trying to be a much better person, make the right choices and repair my marriage as best I can whilst paying off my debt along the way.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

Welcome to the boards.

They are a really helpful and friendly bunch here and you'll get heaps of support.

Keep posting and good luck on your journey.

Pmo2
xx

karigan_2

One of my big life shake ups since February is food shopping. I've joined a local waste food group where you pay £2 a week to attend and then get to pick from a range of donated end of life (yellow ticket style) items that have been donated by supermarkets. Usually you get a full bag for life of shopping- the only issue is that the usefulness of the stuff varies from week to week.
Now got into the routine that I wait until I go there on a Tuesday and see what I get and then spend an additional £28 at Aldi to top up the food group stuff into full meals. Means a budget of £30 for food a week for two adults and one 5 year old which seems to be working pretty well.

Last night was a decent night for food group and I got a massive frozen bag of beef casserole (2 meals easily) chicken breasts, polish thin sausages, bread, milk, butter, tub of M&S finest chocolate cake slices (nom!) family sized Tropicana orange juice, pasta, passata and then a bunch of vegetables and fruit. I'm thinking of combining the sausage with the pasta (two meals worth) and then two beef casserole nights and then roasting the carrots and parsnips I got with honey and putting with the chicken for an additional night.

ratrace

Hi welcome to the board , Is there a reason you cannot go bankrupt with £43k of debt and no real assets to show for it, yes you may have to pay into an ipa for 3 years or so but bankruptcy would wipe the slate clean for you and enable you to save a deposit for a house and after 6 years the bankruptcy would fall off your record and allow to get a mortgage and a house, its just something to consider as it seems you have learnt your lesson and wont be going into debt in the future

Unless you cannot go down that road due to your job etc...

karigan_2

I talked it through with Step change and they recommended I go down the debt management plan route. Morally I feel better about repaying all that I owe as I feel like it's the first step on my journey to sorting out my finances for good.

ratrace

Karigan wrote: »

I talked it through with Step change and they recommended I go down the debt management plan route. Morally I feel better about repaying all that I owe as I feel like it's the first step on my journey to sorting out my finances for good.

Ah ok thats no problem i just thought that there are other options out there, but if you want to go ahead with dmp that no problem but before you do, also look into an iva that is another thing to consider

as far as paying everything back because you feel its morally right or feel guilty then please dont, banks and cc companys take in to consideration that there will always be people that they lend to who will not or have the means to pay them back everything and this is a risk they are willing to take as on the whole make a profit and lots of it too, if they dont want to take the risk of people defaulting then they should not go in the unsecured debt business as it not for them, but as we all know 90% of people that they lend to are profitable customers,so dont feel bad or guilty and its good you want to pay your debt

i used to think that you should pay every peeny back no matter what but i stumbled upon a progreamme where a chap go himself in around about £50k's worth on cc and loan debt which he was unable to pay due to various reasons and after being under so much stress and pressure, he commited suicide sadly leaving behind 2 daughters and his wife, when as his wife said we could have declared ourselves bankrupt because at the end of the day the banks still didnt get the money as it was all in his name but unfortunately the family suffered all because of a bit of money..... so dont fell gulity if you cant make ends meet there are always way around these things

sorry for the long post just thought i would give you another view

karigan_2

Thanks, I appreciate the insight.
To be clearer, I don't feel like the banks/cc companies made moral decisions when lending to me however I'm coming from a place where I stole from my husband so I'm now trying to be my best self. Which includes repaying companies even though there is an option not to. Im seeing it as atonement.