SOA help

Justme4

enthusiasticsaver said:

You will need a two pronged approach.  First the gambling must stop so get support for  that.  The SOA shows that you have little to nothing to throw at the debts so you will have no option but to default. Breathing space is pointless. Looking very quickly at yours I would say clothing and groceries are a good place to start to cut down.  I appreciate with 4 kids they always seem to need something but presumably some can be handed down? Have you put yourself on a clothes moratorium for now and look at supermarkets for kids clothes/school uniform.  Groceries could probably come down assuming you are not feeding 5 adults. Use budget supermarkets, yellow sticker deals and meal plan. 

Groceries does seem high.. but that includes tobacco, toiletries (3 of us who can’t use certain products for time of the month) all have different skin needs through allergies and or sensitivity’s, also toilet roll kitchen rolls sponges cleaning products ect also razors and cosmetic bits … iv put all together as I just thought it would be easier… I totally agree with the gambling that’s under way iv found the local group I’m going to start next week x

ManyWays

It looks as though it is in the possible DRO area. I suggest you talk to your local Citizens Advice, if you can get a DRO it will save you years of stress..  Its often simpler to leave the smoking costs in the groceries - less chance of them being queried and the overall amount isn't too high

RAS

Just checking, your gas and electric look high? Are you paying off debts on those?

Because if your debt is below £50k and your car worth less than £4k, a DRO would be a good way to draw a line under this situation. You need a stable income for the following 12 months.

You don't have any spare on paper, in reality if you are still smoking, you're in deficit every month.  If you need that car then you absolutely have to skin that budge stand get at least £100 squirreled away each month to cover a new car. No need to share that though.

Given you're trying to deal with gambling, please go and see your GP and see if they will prescribe any anti-smoking solutions. Aiming for abstinence right now is too much, one addiction at a time. Even if it helps reduce the amount you smoke, that'll help the budget. 

QrizB

RAS said:

Just checking, your gas and electric look high? Are you paying off debts on those?

I was wondering the same. £246 a month is almost £3000 a year, when the average is closer to £1800. OK this is a household of five, but even so it seems quite a lot.

Justme4

So the gas and electric is trying to get me to pay more so I don’t fall behind in the winter.. last year for the worse winter months my usage could be up to £300 and I’m £150 in the red so it should even out for the bigger months… I have printed out all usage for the last 12 months bills so show this is why it’s that’s much… 

my car is worth about 6k.. I did mention to CAB about that, they said don’t do anything with the car as of yet till I have my full first appointment.

i have a friend who has a garage and has always said if I needed to use a car I could? So could I still have usa my budget for that car? Fuel maintenance ect? I’ll be using it insurancing it I just won’t own it? 

I do want/need to stop smoking too .. iv got an awful cough so it’s time …

apart from that how is my SOA looking?

Emmia

Justme4 said:

So the gas and electric is trying to get me to pay more so I don’t fall behind in the winter.. last year for the worse winter months my usage could be up to £300 and I’m £150 in the red so it should even out for the bigger months… I have printed out all usage for the last 12 months bills so show this is why it’s that’s much… 

my car is worth about 6k.. I did mention to CAB about that, they said don’t do anything with the car as of yet till I have my full first appointment.

i have a friend who has a garage and has always said if I needed to use a car I could? So could I still have usa my budget for that car? Fuel maintenance ect? I’ll be using it insurancing it I just won’t own it? 

I do want/need to stop smoking too .. iv got an awful cough so it’s time …

apart from that how is my SOA looking?

I think part of the problem is that for many years you've had money coming from the other parent of your kids (who should continue to pull their weight really) and your dad - which might be why you've not really had to face the financial implications of gambling etc. until now. 

I think you should retain your own car and finance it yourself - part of this process should be standing on your own feet financially, not needing support or handouts from others.

RAS

Have you checked Parker's for the value of your car? That's the bible.

Your SOA doesn't look bad but ents is rather high. You need contents insurance and with 5 of you it really isn't worth under insuring. Take that out of the ents budget.

The reality is that your current income doesn't cover your spends, particularly if you need to save sometime to replace the car. So yes, get to the GP and reduce your tobacco bill. Check over your clothing, and identify now whether there is anything that you need to make the rest of the wardrobe work. It might be rainwear, a couple of tops or dark trousers for work. Check out the chazzers. Otherwise it's knickers and socks. 

You also need to talk to all of your children and explain that their life style has been underpinned by gifts from your dad and maintenance. And that's no longer available so everyone has to pull in their belts. Ask them to each choose one activity that they want to engage in. Can the girls wear trousers for school to save on tights?

Justme4

The Parker guide yes I looked but which number do I go off?? 

Entertainment would cover 1 day out a month with a meal for us? 5 of us with a meal and something for them… maybe a day with their  friends too? 

I’ll look into contents … the girls will not wear trousers, my son is so rough and tumble and constantly gets holes in his knees in his clothes and ruins his shoes/trainers and the guest girls always gets holes in her leggings.. also when it comes to needing winter coats and clothes and then covers 4 school uniforms with bags and shoes ect.. I’m not going to be able to just go pull it all out like I have before so need to know the funds are there especially for big purchases 

they are aware out life will change for a while 

DankVielen

Justme4 said:

Right this is so hard for me to have to write but here goes… and any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated!! Any help would be so helpful 

Thank you 

Well done for seeking advice and being so honest.

There is no judgement here, we have all been in debt and we all want to see each other succeed in getting out of debt.

I will be truthful because I have compulsive gamblers in my family and have had friends who did not think they had a gambling problem but somehow jumped into it and lost over £50k in a very short space of time.  You definitely need professional help with that and should join Gamblers Anonymous, yes I said it!

In my experience there are two types of compulsive gambler, for one it is part of their personality, they will lie cheat and steal from anyone, starting with family, they lie about their gambling, they only see the wins and think nothing of losing the £170k they won in Europe on the way back to the UK. 

The other type (in my experience) have a compulsive spending disorder, for them it seems they only gamble to try and win back money they wasted on compulsive shopping for stuff they do not need.  Alcohol was also a factor, not rat arm drunk, but drinking enough each night to forget, in my opinion this latter type have a deep rooted cause for depression which is unresolved.  Naturally depression is very closely linked to anxiety and it is often the anxiety that leads to questionable decisions.

For the first type they will never change, they actually have a diagnosable condition which is not curable, they show no remorse so all one can do is distance themselves and never believe a word they say.

You seem to have some similarity to the second group, NOTE: I am not expert and this is not medical advice, so please speak to your GP about the underlying reasons for this behaviour.   BTW it might not be bi-polar, there are a host of DSM-V conditions which might put one in between other conditions, for example Borderline Personality Condition. AGAIN, I am not suggesting you have this or any other condition, seek professional medical advice.  However, I strongly suspect that there will be an underlying depression.

Professional organisations like Gamblers Anonymous may be able to help you or signpost you.

Your coming clean so honestly suggests that the underlying issue may be related to depression and anxiety.  If so, whilst we can help you with different solutions for managing debt, it will all be pointless if you do not get to the bottom of the real cause of your depression/anxiety. 

There are many situational depressions that most people go through at some time in their lives, loss of job, loss of home, loss of partner, bereavement, diagnosis of a bad medical decision, a child being diagnosed with a lifelong condition, divorce, homelessness and so on. 

These differ from deeper seated issues such as abuse or the bipolar you mention because they are situational in nature and situations change. I do not want to move this conversation to the cause(s) of the depression/anxiety, i am not a clinician and have no professional qualification, it is also very private.  All I am saying is that if you do not get to the root cause it is very likely to happen again.

 

The alcohol is also something that again needs professional help, the sooner you enrol on that the better.  If you do end up being diagnosed as Bipolar you will likely be offered meds via something called depot, a slow release method.  They can also give you meds that make drinking unrewarding, but you might want to try to first follow the alcohol programmes on offer.

The situation with your father seems the most important, he will always love you and want to help you, so the best way to resolve that is to come clean with him, explain that you are not asking for a bail out but just his unconditional love with no judgement.  You can also ask him if he will act as a sounding board and a sanity check before you leap into any other debt solutions.

With regard to the DRO it is really only an option if you have no valuable assets and an income that does not leave you with enough income to service basic overheads without leaving some disposable income.  if that is the case then it has a limit of £50k and it lasts a year at which point it will be reviewed to see if your situation has improved. Your car would likely be sold if you went down the DRO route, it might be on finance but an insolvency usually nukes everything so that there is a clean start.  If they allowed a car finance to continue it might be deemed that they were being preferential to one creditor.  Others on here will be able to give you better advice on DRO's.

It is important to break down what you have said so you at least understand some of your poor decisions and questionable thinking.

A lightbulb moment is when one has a GOOD idea, consolidation loans or replacing one debt with another debt that is not substantially cheaper is never a good idea.

I know someone who did something similar with equity release of their parents home to improve it so that when they were forced to sell it they would get enough money to pay for care home, also they were told it would be tax efficient, but the interest payments are eye watering.

The background is that this person had a spending disorder, they would go to up market shops and buy stuff they did not need, this might be clothes they never wore or even liked, lipsticks in the hundreds, never opened or liked.  A collection of Storecards that was prolific, wallpapers from the Kings Road, fabrics, light fittings and more.  They had been bailed out of debt so many times by their husband, parents, children until they could not move, they had consolidation loan after consolidation loan.  Like you they saw the equity release merely as a way to getting their hands on money, which they promptly spent on stuff they did not want or need.  Their parents who were pretty elderly had to do two further equity releases and the property renovation ended up being a bizarre set of works that barely improved the property at all.

If you read posts on this site you will see that consolidation loans are frowned upon and it is is absurd to think that you would be in a better position if you pay off the car because just like a consolidation loan the redemption figures are rubbish. In other words you rarely save enough to make it worthwhile.

I would like to understand what you mean by "better off", lower monthly repayments or freed up money for gambling?

Only one side wins in gambling, the bookie, the lottery company or wherever you place your bet.  Yes I include the lottery because the odds of those are so absurd that you really have no hope of winning.  The gambling at the bookies was not a moment, it was a set of continued behaviours until there was no money left, you even took your kids holiday money, I do not say this to shame you or to be judgemental but to show you the depth of the illness.

The reason I think this is necessary is because if the debt solutions and suggestions offered here are merely used to free up more space for gambling then it will have all been for nothing. 

You have hit one nail on the head which is when you mention "cheer up", it seems to me you need to delve deeper into this with your professional medical practitioner.   Understanding the compulsive shopper is easy, they not only get a buzz from buying something valuable (even if they do not need it), but they can brag about it, seek positive comments from social media from it and something else that was also explained to me.  

Spending recklessly made them feel they were safe, this might sound bizarre to many people but I was told that it is linked to feeling unsafe, having nobody to take care of them in the event of a financial crash, the pressure of the algorithm (work, income, bills, spend).  I am no expert but I wonder if gambling somehow feeds something similar or whether you just have an addictive personality.  

In a way your lines of income drying up is a good thing because it is bringing you to a place where you realise how bad your addiction is, the question is whether living on cards means there is money there to gamble with. 

It seems to me that you are at the final stages of heading for a crash into a very solid brick wall, but luckily for you time has gone into slow motion so you have time to plan a safer exit.

I think it is only a matter of time before your credit record is trashed, you could spend what is left, open a bank account unrelated to any of your current lenders and then put what cash you can raise into that account, also get your benefits and any income moved to that account.  If you dry up all your lines of credit then there will not be room to spend on gambling, but you will find a way even if it means taking food from the mouths of babes as you have already shown. 

So your first action must be to get the professional help from Gamblers Anonymous, no more maybe, take that step and do it now.

Then make up with your Father, that means coming clean as you have done here, ask him not to help you financially but to be there to support you.

Then see GP for referral, ask for access to the crisis team at your adult mental health facility.

While you are waiting for an appointment there are things you can do, like reading up on things like CBT, short version is that it teaches you how to use your own mind to challenge and intervene at first sight of the triggers and questionable thoughts.  In short any half £%^$£ed scheme to get access to money must be avoided the moment the idea pops into your head.  Have some sentences you say to yourself to build your will power, make some emotive by saying you are resisting for the sake of the children.

Once the above is in place you can consider trashing your credit record so you will not have any access to credit for 6 to 12 years, that will be a good thing because you seem very apt and creative at finding ways to get your hands onto money for gambling.

This stage will start with an email to ALL of your creditors (after you created the new bank account and moved your income to that account), in the email you will say

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Sir/Madam

Re:Account No. 123456

I am writing to inform you that due to a massive change of circumstances and no hope of the situation changing,  I will not be making any further payments to the above account.

Yours faithfully

A N Debtor

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is it, you do not need to say any more and you need to do it to all of them on the same day.

What follows will be a bunch of letters, texts and maybe calls, you can reduce this by logging into the portal of each debt and changing your phone number to a PAYG SIM that costs you £1 from Tesco and you update with a new but similar email on a different platform, e.g. Yahoo, Outlook, Gmail, Proton, GMX mail.  Maybe take your current email before the @ and add 25 to it.  If a creditor does not have a portal just contact them to update your email address and phone number as you have been receiving a lot of unsolicited email and scammer calls.  This change should be your first step really.  

The reason for doing this now is that when they share your data with the debt consolidator you want them to share email and phone that you can control.  So I advise getting a non smart phone for the sim and even taking calls on it, for now, while on the old number and email you never open the message, you block all calls not in your phone book, you change the name of any creditors to DO NOT ANSWER Barclays, you also do not answer calls from withheld numbers.  Later you will remove their right to contact you by these means but by taking these steps now you will not need to repeat yourself when a new Debt Collection Company is appointed by the Debt Manager.

This process is known as a self managed Debt Management Plan, for most people the idea is not make any further payments, wait for the debt to be sold to a Debt Consolidator who will appoint a Debt Manager who in turn will appoint a series of Debt Collection Companies for 3 to 6 months at a time. These companies will send all sorts of horrid messages, they will make all sorts of threats that are meaningless, like sending someone to your home (who you will not engage with, who has no right of entry and who you can tell to foxtrot oscar if you want),  Some will threaten to get a CCJ and an attachment of earnings order, but again if you are on benefits and barely have enough to pay your bills a Court can be persuaded to award £1 a month.  I had over £90k of debts, only one very small debt got a CCJ but they did not get a penny because I kept myself one step ahead.

It is up to you whether you wait for offers or wait until the debt is statute barred or even gets a CCJ, normally you would be advised to put the money you would have spent in repaying these debts into yet another account as your emergency fund, but you must know that currently you can't trust yourself.  So I would suggest you ask your father to open a savings account in his name and you make those payments there.  In any addiction remedy you need to have accountability and the person doing that needs to be prepared to be hard as nails with you, so your Father may be the most appropriate.

After you have told creditors you will not be making any payments a lot of letters will be sent so get yourself a lever arch file and use separators for each debt, then file letters in each section chronologically.  You can ignore the threats and the promises of a reduction, because those are just designed to get you to engage which would be an acknowledgement of the debt and thus would reset the Statute Bar to 6 years again.  Typically the debt will go through several evolutions of debt enforcement by different companies, eventually it will lead to an offer of 60% off.  If that takes too long then you can just wait out the 6 years and pay nothing.

It is important that you see this as a chance for a reset and not a way to create more money for gambling, by trashing your credit record (which is inevitable anyway) in a controlled fashion you will force a form of self discipline upon yourself.  You will have the metrics of your debt falling away to look forward to, meanwhile you will work on your addictions and put your children before your addictions.  You can only do this with professional clinical help and accountability, you can get support here from the DMP mutual support thread.  Within a year you will know the letters from specific Debt Collection companies because you will have seen them relating to a different debt. They will be word for word the same except for the amounts.

DankVielen

Another thing that may help you with this DMP debt option is to know that the money never existed, your creditors invented it on their computers and when you tell them you will not be paying they will sell it for pennies in the pound, as low as 3%, so that £10000 cost the Debt Consolidator £300.  The DC has the right to ask for all of it and their approach to making offers is partly determined by your spending and borrowing behaviour, which is one of the reasons why I went totally off radar.  It was the anxiety of it too.

You are right saying that you have let yourself down, but that does not mean you can't find a safe way out of this and get back to a life without credit, where you live within your means, no gambling, no debt, no alcohol or drugs or anything that will take you off that course to a safe place.

You will need to come clean with your father and possibly to some extent to your kids, they must understand that you will be going through a period of low means and might not be able to afford nice things but you can make do with a simpler life.  You can still get a buzz from things like Freecycle which is your go to place for anything you or your kids need. 

Only you can take these steps, we can support you but you are the one that must have the self discipline and must want to do it for the sake of your kids and yourself.