First Steps to Solvency

ryanm8655

Not a lot to say but just caught up on this.

BC nearly gone is amazing, keep pushing with the sales, you and your wife are doing great there.

You’re taking a lot of things very personally and not thinking about the bigger picture. I know what you mean and how you feel. Yes, my life circumstances have been very different but I have felt like you do. I remember before my debt got super bad, I tried to get a consolidation loan to clear the remainder of another loan that was on ridiculous interest. It felt personal and like I wasn’t good enough when I was flat out rejected (it was also embarrassing as the girl dealing with me was super hot). It also seemed equally ridiculous. I’d got my debt down from about £20k to £15k, had just got a payrise, had £3k in savings. All I wanted to do was clear the £15k loan and have a smaller one at lower interest, it was sensible as far as I was concerned and actually made it more affordable. But as far as they were concerned I could just spunk the loan and double my debt. It wasn’t personal, it wasn’t a reflection of my self worth (though perhaps my skewed perception of people valuing me for how wealthy I appeared). Once the debt is gone you’ll have these opportunities again.

On other things you need a bit of perspective. You were eating in Costa for Christ’s sake, not the ritz, get a grip. I get that it’s other things bubbling over but you need to learn to cope and it’s not buy beating yourself up about only having an £800k house plus £700k of BTLs and comparing yourself to people who started earlier than you and have benefitted from generous economic circumstances (like you have compared to the following generation). You need to get a grip, you really do. Stick with the counselling, if you don’t get along with the current one then try another. But they aren’t there to blow smoke up your !!!!!! (or even tear you down a peg), it’s about guiding you through your own thought and feelings, connecting, analysing and processing your experiences to understand why you get so angry and feel so worthless and think everyone is out to get you. But likewise why you treat others so poorly at times.

Clearing debt is hard but your issues are far deeper than that. I’ve felt like you do so note this comes from a place of kindness and experience. You need to get out of the mindset of seeing it as a punishment though. It’s natural for it to feel that way to some extent but you’ve got to get over it and think of the opportunities it’ll grant you in future. You are doing well but you need to get a grip of your anger, it’s not normal and not fair on anyone.

EDIT: Assume the thing you are talking about re: wife is gambling from the cryptic wording? If so then you need to own that, probably contributes to your guilt/shame/low feeling of self-worth. Might be reading too much into things but have you thought about how your fathers actions due to gambling when growing up may have contributed to how you feel? Is it possible that in some way has contributed to you deriving value from money and assets in some way? 

alt80

@warby68 not considered it like that tbh. Thanks.

@RelievedSheff yes would definitely be better if I was buying stuff without credit and within controllable limits lot less stress. Just right now seems like I’m practically 40 and not going to see the rewards until 50 - going to be too late for me to get the 7 figure house at that age if income doesn’t improve significantly.

@Drawingaline Thanks. This morning realised I can’t do that again.

@ryanm8655 definitely taking things far too personally and yes more to it than debt - mindset has got me here now I need to face the mindset and change it. That’s the really issue no idea how to change the mindset. Know the anger is completely unacceptable and I’m treating others poorly. Getting on a lot better with counselling or was last week. 

Not gambling. Don’t really want to get into it - not the place and not something I’ve done for a long time or plan to do again. Possibly do have issues from my upbringing - came into adulthood with nothing no leg ups, no inheritances etc. All on me. Know a lot of people who just seem to get the odd £100k/200k or more every now and again from relatives. Started my BTLs off with a £20k loan from my Ltd it’s embarrassing to me so is starting out with 100LTV res property only way I wasn’t gong to be renting.

One-step-at-a-time

Building any kind of business with no leg ups and no inheritances is something to be proud of.

ladyholly

No one ever progresses in a straight line. There will be good days and bad days.. You are on a very tough journey because you have to completely alter your mind set not just pay your debts. Give yourself credit for what you have achieved and put the rest behind you. You are doing well and recognising when you need your counsellor for a bit extra help is a real bonus.i think everyone on here is cheering you on and only want to see you succeed. I

JCS1

This is where the counselling and maybe CBT will help. It's all to easy to guess what other people around us are thinking, but CBT makes you question that and ask you for proof.  Eventually it does make you change your thinking.  it's not an overnight process, it took me several months for it to sink in.

And the best piece of advice in a sentence "feelings are not fact".  

theoretica

One thing I think you are dreading and ought to work out a decent short answer to is what you will say if anyone asks about the f-type.  Remembering that generally people do take other people at face value - if you sound content and straightforward they will accept it. 

Also - so many of the people you mention talking to you also say you feel a need to lie to about your leverage - car people, property people. What benefit are you actually getting out of such meetings?  I suggest you think long and hard about avoiding people you feel such a need to lie to and finding people to associate with where you talk about other things.  What about dog people?  I bet your son would like training your dog to do tricks or whatever the dog is inclined to.

I agree - that you built up from nothing is so much to be proud of.  Far harder than having a start handed to you on a plate.

dawnybabes

Rome wasn’t built in a day, it’s not taken you a month to get these debts so it won’t take a month to get rid of them 

getmore4less

I am not going to go back through the last few posts to check the details but I think some of the current anger is is an offshoot of the instant gratification issue then when you look at the forward plans you are still including too much you can't get yet and it gets frustrating.

You are still lusting after that instant fix but debt management does not give you that, you will get the one offs from the selling and as each card goes but the longer slog is there but I think you are festering on it being too a long time when the reality in the bigger picture when actually is not that far away.
 
The reality is if you keep to a sensible budget you will be in a much better place in 6-8 months and by the end of next year the options to move forwards will be there as debt will be down to sensible levels or gone(putting the RR to one side for now).

By then your main business should also be back on track and growing if you put some effort into that, maybe enough to reduce the dependency on the BTL.

Remember you also have the benefit of transferring some of the income to the wife that could be worth upto £1k per month in reduced tax if you can use all her personal allowance and 20% band.

Does she own any of the residential and current business(to get the dividend  extraction lower tax)?

You could probably fit in one or two property flips/addition without touching the residential and if done right reduce the exposure in the BTL business 


One thing to consider is to pay back debt in the same time as you created it you have to cut back double the overspend.
Once to break even and once to pay it back.

One thing I have noticed since I started reading this is the number of drug dealer black RR there are on the roads around us
They all look the same(with the odd bit of trim different) they all go the same speed some are even dirty .

alt80

Not having a too bad day today don’t feel well but at least no rage haha. Knowing whatever I have or don’t is all on me that’s the embarrassment - what kind of idiot buys property on 100LTV when you could, me. Who buys a RR on finance, me. Who’s right on the limit of LTV for BTL, me. Always wanted to be big time and it’s on me that I’m not. Made the wrong choices no one else to blame. Can’t remember a time I didn’t have some sort of finance or a time when my whole life business and personal wasn’t based on some kind of debt or leverage. Spent a long time lying to myself about it never mind others. What have I achieved - a load of debt and not a lot else by the looks of it. Now need to pay it back and give up the dreams.

ZaSa1418

It isn't embarrassing, we live in a debt culture and it doesn't mean you have to give up your dreams just postpone them for a little while.
Set a mini dream of getting the debt gone and make your money work for you and your family and not the banks / finance companies and then you can get back to your other dreams.