Don't know what to do

tealady

Hi. Dont beat yourself up too much, we all slip back. Could you have a chat with the bank manager showing them you have wages due and asking for a small increase in your overdraft?

broke_student111

tesuhoha wrote: »

Another thing I always think is that if youve got an addictive personality, it doesnt do any harm to become addicted to this site and moneysaving.

Thanks for that, this is the way I should be looking at things. Before coming to uni, my friends always referred to me as a workaholic, and I had even saved up quite a few thousand from my part time job whilst doing my A-levels (the joys of living rent free!) - which of course led to the bank doubling my overdraft limit every three months. I wish I could be as motivated and determined now as I was back then. Unfortunately, that all went to waste when I started uni, I obviously lost my friends, family and the people from my part-time job - just about everyone who mattered. A bit later on I had a nasty car accident which was a write-off and then got sacked from my holiday job over a technicality. I think this was when the gambling started, at least the problem gambling (I had gambled back since I was a kid but always for small amounts and never 'chased losses' or spent any significant amount of time or money on it), as well as heavy drinking - but stopped that one a while back.

People always say that you will have a great time at uni, but for me it has been totally isolating. I don't think I fitted in with everoyone I lived with, and just due to the size of the place it is very difficult to meet new people. That, coupled with the seeming lack of support and communication from staff to students, and the completely impersonal way classes are taught has led to my experience at university as being the loneliest in my life.

broke_student111

tealady wrote: »

Hi. Dont beat yourself up too much, we all slip back. Could you have a chat with the bank manager showing them you have wages due and asking for a small increase in your overdraft?

Hi, thanks for posting. I will speak to them later today but I think it may be a futile attempt due to the way I have butchered my finances across multiple accounts, and also the large number of fines I have occured.

Thanks for the advice!

miggy

Hi, just bumping this for you and saying, okay, you had a relapse but you curbed it and stopped the damage spreading, which is a big acheivement. I can'tr find a pat on the back smiley but the thought is there!
Sorry to hear about all the bank charges and everything. It's an evil system. Roll on your expected cash! (Pl. don't let any of it go on the fruit machines, though!)
If you can't get into Uni due to funds, ring your tutor and explain, at least they will know you aren't slacking. You could maybe ask if there's any academic work you could make a start on?
Again, well done for stopping the gambling when you did - it's much harder somehow once you've started, so I take my hat off to you for drawing a line under it. :A

boredofbeingathome

Hi Tom, sorry to hear you sounding so down. S*** happens in a spectacular style sometimes doesn't it? As for lapses, well we all have them no matter what we are addicted to, from cups of tea, ciggies, food, whatever! we are human and flawed- its how we are made. Don't hark on the past, it's over with and start to look forward, as you say you have money coming in and I think a short term solution is not to pay bills and renegotiate for later.As Martin is fond of quoting, no problem is unsolvable- it will take a while, but you will get there.
As a solution to the loneliness- do you post on the student forum here? there maybe some students in your region and so could meet up- or even chat about how sh** uni is! Keep talking to folk and hopefully it will help ease things. Good luck for now x

Sue-UU

broke_student111 wrote: »

People always say that you will have a great time at uni, but for me it has been totally isolating. I don't think I fitted in with everoyone I lived with, and just due to the size of the place it is very difficult to meet new people. That, coupled with the seeming lack of support and communication from staff to students, and the completely impersonal way classes are taught has led to my experience at university as being the loneliest in my life.

Hi Tom, (just been asking about you on the "I've done it" thread), obviously things aren't going so well at the moment, but all being well you'll get back to where you were after this rough time is passed.

You're not the only one who hated uni, our daughter thought it was going to be so good, but hated every minute for much the same reasons as you. Luckily she made friends with the girl in the next room to her, but was still so very lonely. She spent so much time ringing us to help deal with things, thank heavens she did.

I agree with boredofbeingathome about going on the student boards, you never know who you might make good friends with even if it's only to 'chat'.

Good luck Tom and keep the determination up - and the debts down asap.

Sue

broke_student111

Hi,

I have just had my first appointment with my counsellor, and I think it went really well. She was very understanding and, even though it being the first meeting, she pointed me in the right directions for support. I have also had a meeting with a finance advisor from the university who arranged a zero-interest cash loan of £250 to cover me until my next loan installment, and pointed me in the direction of hardship funds as well as explaining the process of negotiating with creditors. She also suggested speaking to the senior tutor about the problems I have been facing, so that deadlines could be extended and extra consideration given for exam results.

I have also phoned NatWest in complaint over the charges, which they couldn't help me over (what a suprise!) but did suggest writing to the customer services department and explained the bank would still consider 'hardship cases' whilst the court cases were in progress. He also suggested that I took out a 'consolidation loan' with the bank, which I would normally be wary of but the terms seem unusually good:

- 14.4% APR for the loan compared to 18.9% for the OD
- £123.00 per month for five years without PPI, for a total balance of £5,400
- Loan is fully flexible (can overpay or fully-repay loan without extra interest/penalties)
- All existing overdrafts repaid and cancelled after commencing loan, so no temptations!

He said that I have been 'agreed in principle' and have 28 days in which to consider the loan before making a decision. Unfortunately the bad side is that my second, student overdraft with the bank has to be included in this amount (0% part being £1,250), which would mean that I would be transferring a 0% debt to a 14.4% debt, NOT good. However, I still consider it myself to be a good deal, not least because it will end the usual spiral of charges upon charges that comes with being permanently over-limit, and help me budget better as the payments come out just after payday. It also, according to the advisor, has the effect of resetting my internal credit score, so that if I do not incur any charges and meet all repayments in six months time, I should be reapproved for the student OD again, which can of course be used to pay a portion of the loan.

I am normally sceptical of so-called bank 'deals', but to me this does sound like a genuinely good offer (I know 14.4% for a personal loan isn't the best rate out there, but considering my now-terrible credit score I think this is excellent -- have been turned down for 30%+APR 'high risk' loans in the past), or maybe the advisor is just a good salesperson! Have other people had experience with these types of loan?

tesuhoha

Hi Tom

I think that if you are having difficulty obtaining credit and this is the best deal you can get you should take it. However, I think you should take the advice in your signature and try to repay the loan early. If your other debts are more pressing then you should make the loan repayments and pay your other debts first. I also think that when the test case is over that you should go after your bank charges with interest. Do you know how much they owe you?

I think you are doing well and this loan will improve your circumstances but you still have to be careful and still consider yourself in trouble. By that I mean dont start spending again!

shashu

Hi mate,

I have been reading the debt free forum for quite a while now, but reading the first post in your thread has actually given me the inspiration to sign up as a member tonight just so I can send you this private message. I am 22 years old, and have just finished uni last year. I did a three year politics and philosophy course. A couple of months after starting uni, towards the end of the first year, I began to gamble. Like you, this got more and more severe, by the middle of the second year, I was spending more than 15 hours a day playing online poker and literally spending every last penny in my bank account, staying up till 5.30-6am every single night, waking up at 2pm the next day, and immediately starting to gamble online. Like you, I lost/never made any friends and had absolutely no life in the process of my gambling. For a good while at the start, I was pretty certain I was making a lot of money playing poker, as I could successfully turn £50-£100 into almost £500 some nights. Some months, I netted more than £1000 in profit, my personal aim was to try and make £50 per day. Unfortunately, things began to turn sour after a short while. I went through the process of building funds up in my gambling accounts - which I held with Ladbrokes, Stan James, 32 Red, William Hill, PartyPoker, Paradise Poker, Pokerroom.com, Betfair, Betfred, 888.com, (this list goes on...) upto around £1000 in total, and then going on an absolute 'tilt' session in one night and losing over £1000. In a single night. I absolutely chased my losses, sometimes beginning the night with a £20 deposit, losing that, doing so 3 or 4 more times, then depositing £100, £200, £500. The last huge losing session I had, it was 6am in the morning and I was down over £750, so i decided to buy £400 worth of poker chips and played $25/$50 poker to try and get a quick win. Needless to say, I lost the whole lot within 20 minutes. My addiction was so bad, that I would keep on depositing until my card was declined. On another ocassion, I had lost over £500 in a night, and the next day I scraped £5 in change together and went to the Natwest branch at university campus and paid it in, so I could drive straight back home and deposit it on online poker. By the time I left uni, I walked away with a 2:2 instead of a 2:1, a £1600 maxed out overdraft, and £3500 worth of credit card debt - on 3 maxed out cards. I also took out a £5000 loan in the second year which I used to pay off my credit cards, and maxed them all out again within 6 months. Even after I left uni, I was determined that I could win all my money back, and kept gambling and losing for a short while. About 6 months ago, I reopened my Barclaycard account which had a £1000 limit, and used this to gamble. Within a month, I had over £1500 credit on the card, and then, inevitably, went on an absolute bender and lost £2500.

I realised that this was well and truly ruining my life and decided to try and quit late last year. Initially I managed to cut down my gambling but still did it, losing £20 here, £50 there. However, moving back home from uni helped me regain some structure, and getting a full time job working for my dad definitely helped. In January this year I took a temporary job working as an accounts clerk, which I am currently still doing. Last week, I got a pay rise, and am now accounts manager of a small company, with an income of £1400 per month for full time Mon-Fri. I have managed to pay back my £1600 overdraft, and hopefully when my pay is credited to my bank this week I will be in credit for the first time in over 3 years. I still have over £3200 to pay off my credit cards, and 15 loan repayments to make at £155 per month, but I am managing to save over £700 per month to throw at these debts and I haven't gambled since January, when I had a flutter which cost me £80. At the rate I am currently saving, I can clear these debts off by the third quarter of this year and actually become debt free. I am very lucky because I don't have a student loan to pay back, I have a personal loan instead, but this is going to be paid off by June next year (and I will certainly not be taking out another one!).

I am trying to think of how to best offer you advice. I can definitely say from my own experience that it is very hard, almost impossible to stop gambling when you are in that mode- you can't break the cycle, you have to put some money down because you're in so deep, you're owed that money, you feel like its yours for the taking, and you have to go and get it. Regardless of what anyone said to me when I was at uni, I found it impossible to stop my own gambling. I would join in with my friends and go out, get a lot of drinks down me, and have a good time, but the next night, when no-one was doing anything, and I had time on my hands, it was straight to the tables to take my chances. Having no full time job and not really earning my own money didn't help, I had no way of placing value on it. Another huge thing you need to ask yourself is what you are actually going after that money for. When I won big on poker, I hardly ever spent the money on things that I wanted. I would justify some completely unreasonable spending because of my winnings, but I would then be reluctant to spend them and always end up taking them back to the tables, and losing. Right now, I am more than happy to get paid what I do from my full time job and not have to rely on gambling to earn that money. And in the process, I have structured sleep, eating, social contact, and a hell of a lot less depression.

You must stop gambling, like I have tried to. Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not a fully converted anti-gambling preacher. I often think about playing some poker, especially when I'm bored. There is nothing like it to get the heart racing, and get a buzz. But once you break the cycle, and begin to save some of your own money, you will be reluctant to go and throw it away on gambling.

Would love to keep writing, and I'm sure I could go on forever, but Im starting to lack a bit of structure in this post now! Please get in touch though if you do want to talk - I am definitely a person that has been in your shoes and knows what you are going through - I haven't completely recovered yet, and probably won't do so for a long time, even if/after I manage to pay back my debts - so perhaps we can both help each other into a more positive way of thinking somehow. To all other DFWs, hi! And I hope you can all help me (wouldn't mind getting my own SOA up here, as my plans are to save save save, achieve debt-free hapiness, and then go travelling for some time).

tesuhoha

shashu wrote: »

Hi mate,

I have been reading the debt free forum for quite a while now, but reading the first post in your thread has actually given me the inspiration to sign up as a member tonight just so I can send you this private message. I am 22 years old, and have just finished uni last year. I did a three year politics and philosophy course. A couple of months after starting uni, towards the end of the first year, I began to gamble. Like you, this got more and more severe, by the middle of the second year, I was spending more than 15 hours a day playing online poker and literally spending every last penny in my bank account, staying up till 5.30-6am every single night, waking up at 2pm the next day, and immediately starting to gamble online. Like you, I lost/never made any friends and had absolutely no life in the process of my gambling. For a good while at the start, I was pretty certain I was making a lot of money playing poker, as I could successfully turn £50-£100 into almost £500 some nights. Some months, I netted more than £1000 in profit, my personal aim was to try and make £50 per day. Unfortunately, things began to turn sour after a short while. I went through the process of building funds up in my gambling accounts - which I held with Ladbrokes, Stan James, 32 Red, William Hill, PartyPoker, Paradise Poker, Pokerroom.com, Betfair, Betfred, 888.com, (this list goes on...) upto around £1000 in total, and then going on an absolute 'tilt' session in one night and losing over £1000. In a single night. I absolutely chased my losses, sometimes beginning the night with a £20 deposit, losing that, doing so 3 or 4 more times, then depositing £100, £200, £500. The last huge losing session I had, it was 6am in the morning and I was down over £750, so i decided to buy £400 worth of poker chips and played $25/$50 poker to try and get a quick win. Needless to say, I lost the whole lot within 20 minutes. My addiction was so bad, that I would keep on depositing until my card was declined. On another ocassion, I had lost over £500 in a night, and the next day I scraped £5 in change together and went to the Natwest branch at university campus and paid it in, so I could drive straight back home and deposit it on online poker. By the time I left uni, I walked away with a 2:2 instead of a 2:1, a £1600 maxed out overdraft, and £3500 worth of credit card debt - on 3 maxed out cards. I also took out a £5000 loan in the second year which I used to pay off my credit cards, and maxed them all out again within 6 months. Even after I left uni, I was determined that I could win all my money back, and kept gambling and losing for a short while. About 6 months ago, I reopened my Barclaycard account which had a £1000 limit, and used this to gamble. Within a month, I had over £1500 credit on the card, and then, inevitably, went on an absolute bender and lost £2500.

I realised that this was well and truly ruining my life and decided to try and quit late last year. Initially I managed to cut down my gambling but still did it, losing £20 here, £50 there. However, moving back home from uni helped me regain some structure, and getting a full time job working for my dad definitely helped. In January this year I took a temporary job working as an accounts clerk, which I am currently still doing. Last week, I got a pay rise, and am now accounts manager of a small company, with an income of £1400 per month for full time Mon-Fri. I have managed to pay back my £1600 overdraft, and hopefully when my pay is credited to my bank this week I will be in credit for the first time in over 3 years. I still have over £3200 to pay off my credit cards, and 15 loan repayments to make at £155 per month, but I am managing to save over £700 per month to throw at these debts and I haven't gambled since January, when I had a flutter which cost me £80. At the rate I am currently saving, I can clear these debts off by the third quarter of this year and actually become debt free. I am very lucky because I don't have a student loan to pay back, I have a personal loan instead, but this is going to be paid off by June next year (and I will certainly not be taking out another one!).

I am trying to think of how to best offer you advice. I can definitely say from my own experience that it is very hard, almost impossible to stop gambling when you are in that mode- you can't break the cycle, you have to put some money down because you're in so deep, you're owed that money, you feel like its yours for the taking, and you have to go and get it. Regardless of what anyone said to me when I was at uni, I found it impossible to stop my own gambling. I would join in with my friends and go out, get a lot of drinks down me, and have a good time, but the next night, when no-one was doing anything, and I had time on my hands, it was straight to the tables to take my chances. Having no full time job and not really earning my own money didn't help, I had no way of placing value on it. Another huge thing you need to ask yourself is what you are actually going after that money for. When I won big on poker, I hardly ever spent the money on things that I wanted. I would justify some completely unreasonable spending because of my winnings, but I would then be reluctant to spend them and always end up taking them back to the tables, and losing. Right now, I am more than happy to get paid what I do from my full time job and not have to rely on gambling to earn that money. And in the process, I have structured sleep, eating, social contact, and a hell of a lot less depression.

You must stop gambling, like I have tried to. Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not a fully converted anti-gambling preacher. I often think about playing some poker, especially when I'm bored. There is nothing like it to get the heart racing, and get a buzz. But once you break the cycle, and begin to save some of your own money, you will be reluctant to go and throw it away on gambling.

Would love to keep writing, and I'm sure I could go on forever, but Im starting to lack a bit of structure in this post now! Please get in touch though if you do want to talk - I am definitely a person that has been in your shoes and knows what you are going through - I haven't completely recovered yet, and probably won't do so for a long time, even if/after I manage to pay back my debts - so perhaps we can both help each other into a more positive way of thinking somehow. To all other DFWs, hi! And I hope you can all help me (wouldn't mind getting my own SOA up here, as my plans are to save save save, achieve debt-free hapiness, and then go travelling for some time).

Thats a very brave post and I hope broke student reads it. Why dont you start your own thread and youll get loads of advice. Probably now is not the best time of day. Would be better during the daytime when more people are on. Broke student is doing well and hasnt gambled for some time. I wish you good luck and it sounds as if youre doing pretty well too.