A Lifetime of Debt - F, 40s, autistic, parent, professional

thelibrarian11

Hi, I'm starting a diary, as I always have a lot of thoughts, but I'll try not to disclose myself, as I really am a librarian and I'll want to talk about being autistic, which narrows down who I am already, although I should be safe!

Between me and my husband we are in about 9k of unsecured debt, I owe just under 7k to HMRC and we have vehicle finance - I don't know about his but my car has just over 3 grand on it. So without his finance which I don't know the balance of, today this has us at 20k in the hole. It was 23k at some point earlier this year, it is going down.

I have a plan, and I am well versed in how to do all this after being in debt for most of my working life, it's just the HMRC self assessment that's all new to me and made things a bit worse in the short term because I've messed it up a bit.

What I want to start off with in this diary is a (very brief - I always have lots of thoughts) overview of how I got here and to explain my situation, as I'm really looking back at 'my life in debt' which I'm really reflecting on recently, and I'm hoping so much this time is the last time I will be here. I'm in my 40s and have been in debt for coming up to 20 years which has encompassed most of my adult life. I have finished a DMP and had a DRO as well in my past, and now I'm on a DMP again.

I'm autistic, adult diagnosed, and this is ultimately what has caused all of this, as I both don't understand normal behaviour and activity, and I've struggled to gain and keep employment. I first started getting into debt as soon as I turned 18, as my Mum had a lot of catalogue accounts and made a big deal of having an account with every one, and looking through the books and stuff back in the 90s, so I thought this was just what you did and I copied. I had overdrafts and credit cards as an undergraduate, but paid them all off and none of them went bad. 

I did not do well at work after graduating, and spent 4 years getting bullied and fired from jobs and moving about a lot to try and take any job that would have me. Part way through this experience I realised I was autistic. I was also in an abusive relationship at the time, like a lot of autistic women, and my Dad died in the middle of all that. I ran away to another part of the country to escape the ex and my remaining family, and I wasn't earning enough because I had completely unmanaged autism and was quite unemployable. I think I have rejection sensitive dysphoria and had convinced myself the rest of my family didn't want me there after my Dad's death.

This is of course when I started to use credit and not be able to pay it back. I met my now husband and as we settled down together, and I got help for mental health problems which would ultimately lead to an autism diagnosis in the long term, we slowly got in a massive mess. We were both working, but in minimum wage jobs, and mine was only part time as that's all I was ever offered. We both went on a DMP with Stepchange, and as we came towards the end of it, we got married in a very cheap registry office wedding. My family gave me £1000ish pounds towards it, which I did not use on the wedding, I used to make a few full and final settlements on my debts. We had 2 kids and before they started school got to the end of these DMPs, by living on our tiny wages and tax credits. We were on a low income for a long time, and I think the highest we've been in debt between us was about 30k.

I had a dream of becoming a librarian as a second career, I was working as a library assistant at the time, but I couldn't afford the professional training. I did use the time to be the best library assistant I could be, eventually becoming a supervisor and finally having a good reputation at work, which was so valuable to me. After the DMP finished we slowly racked up the debts again which ended in a DRO for me, which was almost 6 years ago now so it's almost forgotten. Then those post graduate loans started, and as my kids grew a bit older, I enrolled in a Masters degree. I got a Distinction.

After I graduated, my career took off. I went from strength to strength, getting promotions and industry awards, and it's never been like this for me before. I also work freelance on top of my job, and I'm a high earner for the first time in my life. I finally did it, it took me 20 years!

Unfortunately, as this success coincided with lockdown and then the cost of living crisis, and we were only just precariously OK after many years, the debt has started creeping up again over the last couple of years. This third debt crisis has been caused by having all those years of my finances being completely hollowed out and trying to catch up - for example, I was keeping all my socks and everything in a cardboard box and had been for years and I just cracked and bought furniture, it was only second hand but I needed absolutely everything. My kids didn't do well in lockdown and pulled wallpaper off and put holes in the floors, I had to completely redecorate everything, I would describe our living space as squalid before I did it. My car died and I replaced it with one that wasn't an absolute banger that was borderline dangerous. Those kinds of things. My credit rating has always been right at the bottom so they were all really bad deals.

My husband doesn't earn very much, he's always worked around the kids as he has always believed I'd do well at work eventually, and so I'm now the career woman here, at least until the kids grow up. 

I don't need a good credit rating, we live in social housing and it's a really nice area, we are very lucky, and I don't work in finance or anything where my job would depend on it. I'm at peace with the fact I'll never own a house, but what I would like is to knock this debt on the head for good and to get some savings together for my kids, and it would be nice to have a good credit record for the first time in my life. 

I've got the money coming in so that I can do this now, for the first time ever it looks possible I'll do it. I feel like such a late starter, but this is what autism does to a person's life, I saw some statistics showing they have the worst career outcomes of any group, even worse than people with learning disabilities. But I'm one of the ones that managed to overcome the odds. Being in debt hasn't stopped me doing anything I wanted to do - I live where I wanted to, I got married and had kids, we have a nice outdoorsy life, I have the job and qualifications I wanted, I do the leisure stuff I wanted (at least in some form), I have a car that won't kill us and I have some drawers for my socks as well. I've learned to live with it.

I actually can't imagine what life without debt would look like, I think that's part of why I've ended up in a debt crisis for the 3rd time, this is very much business as usual for me. The being debt free is the weird scary place, but I'm determined to go there!

thelibrarian11

I've cancelled all payments over the past week to my unsecured debt. We have 17 creditors (10 me, 7 him), 5 are not defaulted (1 me, 4 him). My one and only not defaulted one is Salad, who I have linked my bank account to. I am in the process of changing my account to a different bank not linked to them, but they know I've cancelled the DD because of the link. They have phoned me already, I didn't answer but the voicemail said I can take a payment holiday if I reinstate the DD for next month, so I did that. I'll be cancelling it again though and writing to them.

I'm going to write to all 17 creditors saying I am in HMRC debt and will only pay you £1 until it's cleared and will only communicate via letter. I've just tweaked my self assessment return, and when that's been accepted I'm going to negotiate payments to HMRC, which I can afford to clear by next Julyish if they accept it, I want to start in Oct so I've at least got Sep where I'm not paying any creditors and I've got an emergency fund. July is also when my car gets paid off, so everything will change then.

I'm not going to overwhelm myself and think about what happens after that, that's enough for now, and I'll look at how things are in a year. I am hoping I'll be in a position to do some full and final settlements, it all depends on how much extra I earn and how much I keep hold of. Right, sorted, now back to the library stuff so I can get earning.

Brie

Well done on taking steps to get yourself sorted.  Sounds like it's been a journey to get here and you still have a bit of a road ahead.  

Best of luck with it all.

thelibrarian11

I'm worrying at the moment about affording some school uniform items for the new term. I have a list of things I have to buy, some I should buy and some I could buy and I'm going to stop when the money runs out. It's going to be right on the last minute, using an electricity account refund as I had credit, and the next child benefit payment. I would love to be able to just plan these things in advance, get the next size of stuff up before they grow and just have it there ready, but I've never quite managed to get on top of things like that and now I'm in a firefighting cycle.

Sarahwithlove

Have you created yourself a budget yet? Maybe complete a statement of affairs. 

Honeysucklelou2

Can you buy uniform in the right colours from one of the supermarket clothing departments? It won’t have the school insignia but will bring the cost down. I tend to prioritise shoes and the jumper and get the rest from the supermarket.

thelibrarian11

Sarahwithlove said:

Have you created yourself a budget yet? Maybe complete a statement of affairs. 

I have indeed, I might be brave and post it soon. I know my food and mobile phone bill is v high so bracing myself to hear that from others.

thelibrarian11

Honeysucklelou2 said:

Can you buy uniform in the right colours from one of the supermarket clothing departments? It won’t have the school insignia but will bring the cost down. I tend to prioritise shoes and the jumper and get the rest from the supermarket.

My eldest goes to a school that has quite a lot of branded stuff which is really bad isn't it, they're not supposed to do that. Shoes are top of my list too!

thelibrarian11

I've managed to get details of my husbands vehicle loan. He owes about 5.5k and it ends Jan 2028. I'm adding this to my total so I can watch it go down, but I'm not doing anything different with it, just going to keep making the payments until it finishes, no problems affording it.

I have been playing with what I now think of as my 'comfort spreadsheet' for a week, collating all this information in one place and making predictions on when my debt free date is (I am a huge fan of pivot tables and VLOOKUPS) - I reckon 2 years and it's all gone.

What's lovely to think about is from what I've learned on here, I can keep some money aside for holidays and christmases and when I need to re-wallpaper or repair my car and everything, we're not going to go without any of that stuff and I'm in control of all of those decisions, not my creditors. I was thinking they would want to know how much I'm spending on Christmas presents and have something to say about it, and that we'd all have to go without all the time. Until now I'd been giving everything I had towards existing debts and using new debts for all those things, that's where my bad cycle has come from. Really grateful for these forums for opening my eyes to that. 

thelibrarian11

Here's my statement of affairs, I am going to have my husband add this amount to my bank account, as he does this behaviour where he makes little payments on his games and on Amazon and transferring to his Dad without checking if any bills are due or telling me, and we get in a mess because of it and it really stresses me out and annoys me. It leaves him between 100-500 depending on how much overtime he does to mess around with himself. He has this special arrangement with his Dad, something like he gives him 100 a month over a year and he gives it back to him in the summer doubled, so we want to carry on with that.

I would appreciate any advice, but I can guess which ones you will suggest I reduce.

Number of adults 2
Number of dependents 2

INCOME
Me £2534.00

Husband contribution £1500.00

Child Benefit £159.60 - this is every 4 weeks, I've not adjusted it for monthly

TOTAL £4193.60

OUTGOINGS

Rent £626.59

Council Tax £197.00

Electricity £200.00 - no gas lines where I live, all electric house

Water £74.69

TV License £13.25

Devices £341.51 - this is very high I know, we have 4 phones, 4 tablets and 2 smartwatches, I change to SIM only when contracts finish

Internet £33.00 - no other providers where I live

Subscriptions £61.97 - Spotify, Netflix, Google Drive, Gaming subscriptions, I know I should consider cancelling these

Professional association fee £13.34

Husband's device insurance £13.22

Washing machine insurance £6.68 - I use this a lot on my old washer, had some nightmares washing clothes in the bath and do not want to cancel

Contents insurance £29.45

Life insurance £38.65

Me Car Payment £318.90

Me Car Tax £14.43

Me Car Insurance £43.22

Him Vehicle Payment £177.00

Him Vehicle Tax £8.83

Him Vehicle Insurance £101.06 - He's written off 2 vehicles so this is the lowest we could get it

Breakdown cover £32.50

Petrol £150.00

Vehicle Servicing £50.00

Food shops £500.00 - this is lower than what we have been spending, got a teenage son with hollow legs

School dinners £150.00 - this is honestly what we spend on top of food shopping

Protein Shakes £100.00 - Me and my husband have these instead of meals and just have 1 meal a day together

Pocket Money £60.00 - I give 1 £10 a week and 1 £5 a week in exchange for doing the stuff they're supposed to be doing

Gymnastics £28.00

Martial arts £35.00

Clothes, school uniform, trips etc - will use any freelance money I get

Christmas, birthday presents saving - will use any freelance money I get

Prescription £10.00

Spiritual group my share of room hire £15.00

Monthly payments for mandatory professional training course for freelance work £60.00 - this finishes in a couple of months, Nov I think
TOTAL £3503.29
DIFFERENCE £690.32

Me unsecured debt token payments £10.00

Him unsecured debt token payments £7.00

Me HMRC (hopefully they will accept this, this is what I will offer) £650.00
TOTAL £667

DIFFERENCE £23.32


DEBTS

Droyds  279.29

Moorcroft 102.89

Capital One 1 362.34

Capital One 2 353.44
Capital One 3 346.5

Lowell Financial 895.96

Lowell Financial 154.49

Salad Money 1151.11 - not defaulted

TBI financial services 768.86

Link Financial Outsourcing 895.73

Credit Resource Solution 117.93

NCO - Arrow Global 428.09

Cabot 480.68

Lendable 1,322.39 - not defaulted

Marbles 1190.1 - not defaulted

Zable 466.8 - not defaulted

Freemans 182.07 - not defaulted

HMRC tax 6,843.42

Car, Startline Motor Finance 3836.8
Husband vehicle finance, Ratesetter 5530.98
TOTAL £25709.87

Sarahwithlove

I think you already know where you need to start cutting back. Electronics and subscriptions. 

I see your husband contributes £1500 is this not all of his wages? If not why not? Have you allowed personal money for you both in the budget?