Feeling frozen

Slimerurgh

I called business debt line before Christmas because I decided I finally need to sort my debts out. I’ve been in debt for most of my adult life starting out with a clothing store credit card when I was 18 followed by a loan for a car and so on. I now have a ridiculous amount of debt. 

Halifax credit card 8k 
Tesco bank £10.5k 
sainsburys 1.5k 
hmrc 1.8k - have set up a payment plan. 

Bank overdraft £150 
energy company £380

i have a part time job bringing in about 22k Pa 
self employed income about 3.5k Pa 
cover work £200 a month 

my wages vary every month. I’ve been through a budget so many times and I can’t get to a place where I’m happy with it because I don’t want to over estimate and I don’t want to underestimate. 

Two credit cards have a hold of action until 21st and one ran out a few days ago. I’m so scared of what comes next. 

I struggle to make phone calls, I have to be on my own and my daughter has been having trouble at school and keeps being sent home so that’s causing me stress and also limiting the time I can make phone calls. I travel with my work so this also takes a chunk of my time that I can’t phone up. 

I wish I just earnt the same every month and then I would be able to see more clearly but everything feels so messy and complicated. 

I’ve missed payments on my credit cards now because I haven’t been quick enough to take steps to sort this out. The thought of being on hold for ages puts me off making the calls too. I struggle with audio processing especially if the person has an accent so this also adds to the anxiety of speaking to someone/ 

I was diagnosed with ADHD middle of last year and things as starting to make more sense to me now as to how I ended up in such a pickle. I’ve realised along with time blindness I also have similar with money, in my mind I have a lot more money left than I actually do and I get swept away with this thought. I feel so stupid but I’m not stupid and I just wish u could wipe the slate clean and start all over again. I don’t know what to do but I know I can’t go on feeling like this. I know my credit report is probably ruined now anyway and I’ll be stuck in this house forever but at least I have a house. I don’t know what the point is now if I’m going to be scraping by for the next 10 years or how ever long it takes to pay everything off.
i don’t know what I’m looking for here hopefulllg someone who gets it. Maybe some stories with good outcomes 

Andyjflet

Post an honest SOA and we can start to advise as to the best options and support. You have made the first step well done :-)

SOA Calculator

sourcrates

You have around 20k of debt, and own a house, is that correct?

Why not do debt management?

As for budget, don`t get too involved, work out an average figure and just go with that.

Nothing much is going to happen with unsecured debts, why not go on to the stepchange website and look at doing a DMP ?

Easy to sort online, once set up and running all is good, you just pay less over a longer timeframe.

I suspect you will need a hand with this and stepchange can provide that help for you.

20K of debt is not the end of the world, but I would treat HMRC as a priority and stick to what has been agreed.

rachmac3

Hey @Slimerurgh, you've made a great start, you've faced up to the problem and written down some numbers. 
I totally get the panic, I was always in two minds, feeling like I should repay the maximum amount and go without anything nice to get it cleared as quickly as possible (like punishing myself for getting into this mess), but then panicking about things being so hard for so long that I wouldn't be able to do it (being hard on myself and thinking I was weak and had no willpower). 
One option might be to work out the minimum you earn each month and work out how much you can afford to repay based on that. I would worry that if you based it on a higher figure it might set you back on the lower months. This way you could pay extra on the months you earn extra and it will feel like a bigger win, but you won't have to feel like you've failed on the months you can only pay the amount you've set for yourself. 
However you choose to tackle this, try not to be too hard on yourself (I know, easier said than done). 
Good luck with your next steps!

RAS

Tend to agree with rachmac and sourcrates.

The first thing is to do your SOA and work put if your regular earnings cover your essential costs? Then you need to stabilise the situation, like paying HMRC before thinking about the other debts.

As a priority, try to organise a new basic bank account with one to whom you owe nothing (checking banking groups). Do not use switch as that transfers any DDs to creditors, which you want to leave in your old account.

Once you have a better perspective on essential spends, it's possible to look how to manage your repayments going forward.

Brie

Seconding Sourcrates suggestion of talking to one of the debt advice charities.  There's 3 mentioned in his signature and I'll also suggest Community Money Advice (CMA) and Christians Against Poverty (CAP) who tend to be more face to face than the others.  But any of them should help deal with the contact with the creditors.  And creditors tend to take any of these agencies seriously which will give you much less to fret about.  

Well done for taking the step to get things sorted.

ManyWays

What did business debtline say? 

I’ll be stuck in this house forever
Are you buying or renting, do you want to move? 

Slimerurgh

Thanks everyone, I’ll do the proper calculations thing and post this later. 

I’m renting at the moment. I never thought so far ahead as to buying a house and I don’t think I really understood what a mortgage was or how it works until a few years ago when I thought I’m 43 and I really should have brought a house by now. I wish I’d learnt about money sooner but not much I can do about that now! 

tigergambit

Slimerurgh said:

I struggle to make phone calls, I have to be on my own... 

The thought of being on hold for ages puts me off making the calls too. I struggle with audio processing especially if the person has an accent 

I was diagnosed with ADHD middle of last year and things as starting to make more sense to me now as to how I ended up in such a pickle. 

I just wish u could wipe the slate clean and start all over again.

i don’t know what I’m looking for here hopefulllg someone who gets it. Maybe some stories with good outcomes 

Slimerurgh  As someone diagnosed with Autism (Asperger's) at the age of 57 I wholly understand and sympathise with the sentiments in bold and I totally get it! Like you my reaction was one of a sort of relief in knowing that there really IS something I'm missing. I had got into almost £60k of debt but by understanding how debt works and understanding a bit more about myself I have managed to get on top of this and, whilst still in debt, have come to terms with the situation.

The good news is that you are realistically aware of your problems and limitations, acknowledge that you need to change things and have come to the right place for advice. Others here are much better qualified to advise you than I am but I do agree with Sourcrates above that you should look at a DMP.

Tips I would give you:

Above all you must look after yourself both physically and mentally. There is no shame in asking your doctor for help and using prescribed chemicals. I had real trouble accepting this, but in truth I now recognise the need to correct the natural chemical imbalance in my brain. Better to pop a pill a day than be a danger to myself and others and a totally unpleasant person.

Pay off HMRC as agreed. You don't want to mess with them. Then the energy company and overdraft.

With regards to a Debt Management Plan:

MINDSET is vital. Think of this as a two-player game with each of your creditors. Your aim is to pay as little as possible without them turning nasty. Their aim is to get you to pay as much as possible without them having to incur the costs of turning nasty. 
The rules are:
- You stop paying, you also stop corresponding in any way. Just keep a file with letters from your creditors, filed by creditor in date order.
- Your creditors try calling you (block their numbers), possibly emailing you (file), writing to you (file).
- After a while they write to you warning that they will default the debt, you ignore this.
-They Default your debt. At this point you contact them and tell them how much you will be paying them per month. (If you don't they may turn nasty a few months later). Remember that once they default you all interest and charges STOP.
- They ask for a Statement of Affairs (SOA) see below.
- You provide one or not. You DO NOT provide any payslips/bank statements or anything else.

You have two SOAs. One is a bare bones which you try to live by, hopefully showing a healthy monthly surplus which you can put into an emergency/settlement fund.

The second one is for your creditors. You need to make sure that this is as close to their maximum spending as you can get for each section. Some of the acceptable limits are surprisingly high. I wouldn't be mentioning any non-PAYE earnings in this btw. You have to remember that you are just a number to your creditors - one of millions - they have neither the time, money nor personnel to check your SOA.

Use the difference to build a settlement fund and after a few years you can start to ask for settlement offers.

I have found TESCO to be difficult to deal with, but 5 out of 8 of my creditors settled for under 25%. I still have £18k outstanding on which I pay £22 per month. I'll never clear it but eventually they may realise that a F&F settlement is their best chance of getting some money back.

I feel that I should be feeling guilty but, like you, I look back on how much interest I paid over the years trying to play by their rules and I think sod it, they can play by mine for a bit. 

Good luck on your journey.

thelibrarian11

I'm 43 now and I've been in bad debt for most of my adult life because I'm autistic. I know what you mean about not knowing what a mortgage is, I'm the same with all this and we live in social housing. I was diagnosed at 36, and up until about 32 I really struggled to hold down a job, I was very unemployable.