Me, Myself, and My Big Fat Debt!

lamarsi

Hi all, i'm new to the forum so i'd like to say thanks to ya all for the advice i've been pinching from the forum and i thought it time i introduced myself. my name is leah, i'm 40 and self employed. Here is abit of background info: the last 4 years of my life sort of went like this... hold on to your hats..
1) Meet nice man fall in love
2) Have fertility tests done... find out i'm going thru early menophause
3) Get preggers (hurra)..lose baby(boo)
4) loose good job..
5) loose nice man (turns out he was abit rubbish...)
6) get told i'm bipolar (thats why i was being abit rubbish)
7) get medicated and realise i'm up to my neck in debt!

I've not read any similar situation to mine on the boards so far but i'm sure there are, one of the symptoms of my illness is when i'm on a 'high' i can go out and spend without thinking.. i'll give you an example, i went to asda one day to get some chicken and past a car showroom and bought a car, a little 2 seater, bit impractical but a nice shade of red.. anyway i've decieded that it's time to address these debts, i've done my snowballer and it's going to take me 78 months!

Debts todate £93,600

sparky0107

Hi lamarsi,
Welcome to the forum, You've had a rough time kid, but the good people on this forum can help you through, if possible can you post a thorough SOA with APR's and outstanding balances, some very helpful people will come along soon and give you some very good advice. I just wanted to say hi newbie from a (relatively) new one lol.
Take care

In_Search_Of_Me

morning! Sorry to hear your tale of woe
Firtsly welcome to the boards! Secondly it would be good if you could list a full list of all incomings, outgoings and debts with APR's as starting point. "Need to sort it" is also bi-polar and been on here a while (although not in last few days...) so there are others in your situation. Do you have a CPN? Can they help you with your finances - spending is a side effect of bi-polar and it may be possibe for them to help you in this respect. In view of the level of your debts I would ring one of the free debt agencies
- see the tab at the top of the page - CCCS etc are great, not for profit & can help! Not sure how you are generally - ie are you wel enough to work r do car boot sales etc toget extra cash? Anyway, look forward to getting to know you! Big hugs & welcome.

denerobt

Welcome Lamarsi and good on you for joining:beer:

i'd just like to say that although I am a CPN, we can't do very much about financial matters as we would get our heads bitten off by our employers. apparently, we should direct to an appropriate service - but what can you do when our local CAB is open for 2 days a week and our social services team in health won't help but just say direct to the CAB or to the social services at main county hall!!!

I direct some of my great people to this site so that they don't feel it's only them, but often I use my networks of friends in social services to direct me and then I pass on the help. I'm not allowed to do this but !!!!!! it - what did I come into nursing for if not to help people?

just before a 'high' do you get any warning or do you have a friend who could be VERY honest with you and tell you your going up a bit? I ask, as one lady I know gives her cards to a friend and that friend wil not hand them back till she sees an improvement, now that a good friend!!

Good luck in your journey though. As you've come to this forum you must be pretty brilliant because from what I've seen, only brilliant people are on this forum :A

Bismarck

Hi, welcome to the fun!

Just a quick thought..93K snowballed into 78 months is pretty impressive...are you on a big chunk of income? I hope so because with the help of the folks on here you could be done quite quickly. That size of debt would take me 78 years!

This is really the place to be for sorting stuff out.

lamarsi

Hi all thanks for the good advice! I shall get on with doing my SOA and I’ll just like to clarify a few things, my bipolar is pretty well under control at present with the drug tegretol retard, and this why I’m am to feel that I can make a start at addressing my debts at last. The £93,600 does included a £60,000 mortgage but I have been told by my doctor (currently not seeing a cpn still under physiatrist (?)) and the 78 months to clear it depends on me chucking £1500 a month at it which in my job is do-able but only if nothing goes wrong i.e. illness, car repairs etc. (I’m self-employed as a taxi driver) My doc did say that if I didn’t feel able to address the debts then because I can’t be held responsible for them they can be cleared due to the nature of my illness (whoo hoo! Every cloud etc!) but at this moment in time I want to try and sort them myself… if I went down that road I would probably never be lent so much as a bean for the rest of my life which at the moment sounds good but might be abit of a pain in the future. ( It would be like blacklisting me for life!)

Need_To_Sort_It

HIya,

I had a pm about your message, I haven't been on the board for a few days. I am the one that In Search of Me mentioned I have bipolar disorder and can totally relate to you spending sprees, I could write a book.

I'm pleased to hear that you are somewhat stable, its a help. But also realise that stress is a major trigger for us to go awol. Recognise stressful situations as potential triggers and look out for the warning signs.

Getting to your debts, is there any reason why you are in such a rush to clear your mortgage - 78 months paying £1500 is over a £100 grand in 6 years, what an enormous task you have set for yourself.

Also has anyone spoken to you about your eligibility for disability living allowance, a benefit payable to people with care and or mobility needs, it does not matter if you are working.

Your GP sounds very supportive regarding your debts and I am seeing my shrink soon to ak for his help in handling my creditors, did he mention how the process of getting debts written off on the grounds of mental incapacity works?

lamarsi

Hi Need to Sort It thanks for replying it's good to know i'm not the only one that's in this position, i understand what you say about stress and no there is no rush to pay the mortgage but i put what i felt i could afford at this moment in time into the snowballer and that's the result i got, i'm not worried if i can't stick with this as long as my monthly payments are upto date which they should be soon and i pay off £2500 to Halifax credit card at 29.5%- highstreet robbers !!!! to be honest i haven't spoken at any great length with the shrink about writting off my debts as i mentioned in previous post this isn't something i want to do at the moment but he said they could write to the companies and say that it was a symptom of my illness and i couldn't be held responsible for my actions and therefore wasn't responsible for the debt. i think it helps that the debts run in line with manic periods i was having... but not positive on this, good luck in asking let me know how you get on and stay well

lamarsi

P.S. also i understand what you're saying about DLA it is worth looking into but at the moment i'd rather stay clear of the system if possible due to bad experiances in the past (it causes me to much stress) but it is something i may consider down the line so thank you

Need_To_Sort_It

Yes I know what you mean about benefits, DLA is one of those ones that cause an enormous amount of stress when applying on mental health grounds, many advice agency workers don't know how to complete them properly for MH, so there's little hope for the layman. But if ever needs must, then you know its there.

How long have you been diagnosed. I have been almost 4 years now although I still remain unstable lol, I could have told THEM that ha ha. I have mixed affective bipolar which means I swing from high to low sometimes in minutes, sometimes days, sometimes weeks and then in between all that I get months of highs and months of lows. Its quite hard to control when the changes are so rapid and I take a concoction of meds. I am a proper jeckyll and Hyde, its horrible. But hey, I have had some balls you know, and I thanks God that even though he decided to bless me with a mental illess at least its not all depression!

Although I knew the diagnosis was coming, I was both relived and horrified all at the same time. Relief to know what had caused this behaviour and havoc and then I felt despair at being a nutter for life and the harsh reality of my future.

Yes that's a big interest with Halifax there. Would be good to get shot of those wouldn't it.

If you post an SOA the kind peeps here will tear it to shreds and show you how to make real savings, thus either giving you a little leeway or more to throw at your debts.

Its lovely and encouraging to see someone with bipolar well enough to start taking control over their life and doing something to sort it out. Hats off chick!

lamarsi

Lol it's so good to hear you say that about depression and the relief /despair when you were diagnosied! That's just how i felt although luckly i am on the lesser extreme of the scale my heart goes out to you cause i know how difficult it is just at this level! i was only diagnosed this time last year although i have been symptomatic since i was 16! i remember saying to my Qwack if this is normal god help me! My meds keep me pretty stable but that in itself can be a p****r and i have recently skipped them for a week or so but the up/down was so fast well done you 2 for addressing this, it would be so easy to excuse our problems like it says in your siggy PROUD TO BE ADDRESSING MY DEBTS!!!!