Wherediditallgo’s ‘path to enlightenment’ bankruptcy diary

Oct 2005 – split from long-term partner (my decision) & had to move home. Had only a fortnight to get moved in, so paid a bomb in removal costs as didn’t have much choice about the people I used at such short notice & didn't have a chance to decorate & clean the place properly before moving my stuff in. What seemed like a good place to move to (& still is, in some respects) starts to eat money like crazy, in terms of basic household items, some decorating etc. I don’t regret the move, but my finances were only OK because there were two of us. Now there’s only me, I don’t have the money to play with & I’m having to rob Peter to pay Paul to get things paid. In two months, I spend over £1,000, just to cover the basics.

The floorboards need a lot of work, but I can't afford it & the council won't do it. Decide to buy sheets of hardboard from B&Q (bringing it home on the bus wasn't fun). Hadn't got a clue what I was doing, but managed to buy the right tacks, then get the hardboard down. I used to prize my long nails - they disappeared within an hour of me getting the hardboard in & starting to trim it to put it in place. Slept like a log from sheer exhaustion.

Nov 2005 - though I don’t have much money, I pay for enough carpet for the rooms as I can’t face walking on cold floors in winter – the stairs & landings will have to wait. I can't afford to pay to have the carpets fitted properly though, so I get the carpet delivered in rolls of room-sized cuts, & then live with the rolls in the hall while I work out how to cut it to size & put it down. The furniture has to be moved out of each room before I can get the carpet on the floor, so I have to lift it all out myself then put it all back. If I'd paid someone, it would probably have all been done in a weekend, but I haven't got the money, so it goes down as & when I can do it in between working full-time.

Dec 2005 - spend Christmas & New Year with friends & family away from home. Couldn't face being in a cold & unwelcoming flat, & definitely didn't want people to see what I'd moved into when they knew what I'd had before.

Autumn 2006 – fell behind with the rent a few months before because I had to miss a couple of months' payments, but have just managed to delay action being taken on the rent by since then always paying the monthly amount as soon as I get paid. I’ve got to catch up though, otherwise either it’ll increase or they’ll write to me about it, so I decide to pay off an extra week’s rent each month until it’s completely cleared. Fell behind with the Council Tax too, & the council call in the bailiffs, who decide to make it their life’s mission to make payment to them as difficult as possible. Thank goodness for a phone with an integral fax - I start faxing the bailiffs & the council like there's no tomorrow.

Speak to CCCS – they do a financial statement for me, which I send to my creditors. Some respond, some don’t. I can’t even cry about it - I’m so tired.

Dec 2006 – the most miserable Christmas ever. Spent it with friends, some of whom were in couples, but I felt so alone. I didn’t have time to dwell on the relationship breakdown last year as the move kept me really busy, but this Christmas I had lots of time to think about how the last year had gone. I resolve to make sure Christmas 2007 is very different, as I never want another Christmas like this one. The first priority is to get my debts in some sort of order, so that I’m controlling them instead of them controlling me.

March 2007

5 March – posted letters with postal orders to two banks to get details of the last 6 years’ bank charges. Hopefully, I’ll get some money from putting in a claim, & that can then go towards clearing the debts.

12 March – finally win the battle with the bailiffs over the Council Tax! The council take the case back off the bailiffs (all my faxes finally showed their worth), remove the court costs & I’m left with less than £10 to pay! :j I happily pay that off online, & can’t keep the smile off my face all day. Now the roof over my head isn’t at risk because the rent & Council Tax are up-to-date, & I feel so much better. The other debts are ridiculous though, & I know I’ve still got a big battle ahead with them.

Decide 60-40 to take the CCCS advice given months ago to go for bankruptcy, as I can’t cope with the stress any more. Even while I was delaying the decision, I did manage to save up the money to pay for the petition, so at least I don't have to worry about finding that. I don’t have the money to clear the debts, & can’t face another 15 years or more in this mess – my health won’t take it. Though I’ve made mistakes, I know 15 years of misery is too harsh a penalty to pay for them.

Since the start of March, I’ve been wavering between whether to go for the bankruptcy, making more offers to my creditors or go for payment plans like DMP etc, but I realise my chances of sticking to an arrangement long-term aren’t good. With my poor health, I could end up having to give up work in a few years, & I wouldn’t have cleared much off my debts in that time, so would have to face bankruptcy then anyway. I've had a lot of great advice from some internet forums over the last couple of weeks, & feel stronger than I did.

15 March - the balance in favour of bankruptcy is now 80-20, but there’s still that last bit of doubt & fear to get over. I make myself sit down & work out my finances, & start opening the backlog of letters that have been sent to me over the last few months, starting with the most recent first. They don’t make pretty reading, but none of them are at bailiff stage, thank goodness. My debts total roughly £23,000. Was a bit concerned that my employer would find out if I went bankrupt, but also read on the forums that if I put in my petition before the end of the tax year, there won’t be time to change my tax code, so they need never know about it. Not even sure why that bothered me so much – there are over 5000 employees & I’ve never met anyone from payroll yet in several years of service, so the chances are I never will, plus I'm unlikely to be the only one in this position anyway. And bankruptcy isn't the only reason someone's given an NT code, so employers aren't going to automatically assume why someone's got one.

Read that some people are having to wait several weeks for a court date, so in a panic I ring my court to book a date. I find out that I can just turn up on the day, which is great. Also find out that they have a volunteer service that will take you round to the different parts you need to go to & give you emotional support leading up to submitting your petition & on the day itself, provided you arrange it the day before you plan to attend! I’m shaking in my boots now, so I can see that I’ll probably need that. The woman was very nice though, so at least I don’t think the volunteers will judge me. It's the first time I've felt someone might be on my side for 18 months.

17 March, 2am - sent a fax to that woman's company forbidding them from taking money from my account. I don't expect them to pay a blind bit of attention, but at least I've sent it.

Took out the remaining free cash in the account as soon as I could get to a cashpoint this morning, then rang the bank & reported the card lost - they'll put an immediate stop on the card & issue me with a new one. That company now won't be able to get a dime.

Went to the building society & took out the money for the bankruptcy petition. Got a £1 postal order ready to send to the same debt collection people tomorrow (must remember to send it registered post) with a request for a copy of the credit agreement - I'll enclose a copy of the fax too. They've got 12 days from receiving the credit agreement request to respond. By then I should have been to court.

Tonight - can't afford to go out, so spent the best part of 4 hours putting up a Venetian blind in my kitchen. Ladies, learn basic DIY skills while you can, instead of when you're forced to. I've never done one of these things before, & was ready to throw up after going up & down my dodgy ladder a million times measuring, marking where it needed to go, drilling etc & trying to balance over the sink at the same time. Doesn't help that the blind keeps trying to unravel while I'm trying to hold it in place. Finally got the thing up though, & it looks great.

18 March - checked another bank account. A nice refund of £180 for the supply of faulty goods has come through.

It seems I'm learning already. If I'd got that money a couple of months ago in my 'head is very comfy buried in the sand' days, it would have gone on something that I wanted but don't actually need. Having replaced that head Wurzel Gummidge style for my current 'bankruptcy's staring me in the face' head, I'm going to put that money aside for post-bankruptcy utility bill payments while the new bank account gets sorted out. Then I won't be starting off with a whole new set of arrears to deal with.