Why I Can’t Help You Get Out of Your Debts

I can’t advise you on how to get out of debts.  Sadly, I can only point out where I went wrong and plunged into personal financial China Syndrome.  I owe the bank over £15,000. Hopefully, my story will at least serve as a warning to anyone using credit cards out there. Debt is very easy to get into, but very hard to get out of alone, like quicksand or a black hole.  Debt spirals and tends to feed itself, in that the interest on payments left outstanding grows and grows unless you can get it frozen.  If you find that you are drifting into meltdown debt you need urgent advice from welfare rights organization like the Citizen’s Advice Bureau. (CAB) in Britain.  http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/ Their services are usually free. My debts arose from use of credit cards at the time I lost my main job. I was confident I’d find steady work quickly and therefore let my repayment plans get out of hand. In the end I was borrowing money from the credit card just to pay it back in which meant the interest on the next month’s credit bill was much more than I’d just paid and eventually there was just not enough money left in the bank account over-draft to pay any more back in. I thought I’d and up filing for bankrupts, but the CAB got my interest frozen so it couldn’t grow worse, and assured the bank that as I was mostly out of work, I was only legally obliged to pay back £1.00 a month.  This is of course absurd, and means that the debt can’t possibly be resolved in my lifetime, or before the year 3015. The bank dislikes it as much as I do, and for a time, they were phoning me up frequently, begging for more money, and demanding news of changes in my circumstances. It was quite intimidating, and paramount to a campaign of harassment. Eventually the CAB helped to get them off my back. The £1.00 a month plan is ongoing. That’s the situation as it stands for me at present. I can use banks, (though not the one I’m in debt to) as long as I don’t request credit or an overdraft. Only a major career change, (i.e., a career) or an unexpected inheritance is likely to raise my income enough to let me pay the debt off properly. The main think with debt is to see it coming. Avoid legitimate loans and grants as well as loans from back street loan sharks). Avoid using credit cards whenever possible. You will eventually have to give the money back, and if you start robbing Peter to Pay Paul, you’ll end up in debt to both, and to Simon, Thomas, and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all.  Sooner or later they will come to you demanding repayment with interest. Some of them could get ugly about it. Have some money in reserve for emergencies. Be careful in particular with debts on which property like your house or car could be reclaimed from you. The main thing, as I say with debt is not borrowing more money to throw into it, but getting good advice, or you could end up where I am, potentially in debt until 3015. 

Arthur Chappell