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I'm starting this diary off although I'm still very much at the info gathering stage yet having only had access to one of my credit reports so far. Some pleasing news on there though with regards to the date of most of my debts being pre April 07. I think only two were taken out more recently than this which I knew anyway.
I've still got to apply for my OHs reports to gather dates for his too - I'm fairly sure most of his are old too but won't break out the beer for a long time yet! A very quick run down of our joint debts (click the links to go to that debt, each opens in a new tab):
Total today stands at £82,985.22
So you can see, we're in this mess pretty deep. But now we've finally taken our heads out of the sand we can begin to sort things out and move on.
All creditors have been sent token £1 payments for the past 4 or 5 months, some have grumbled hugely, others less so. I've only spoken to one (when I answered my phone by mistake
) but I refused to go through the data protection procedure so that call didn't last too long 
We've had a door step visit from one already, but whoops I mustn't have heard the door bell. Shame I missed him 
Most (possibly all now) creditors have had the 'don't bother phoning me' letter, and those who've suggested Local Collection Agents may be the way forward have had the 'Don't bother, I don't wish to make an appointment with you' letter so things are relatively quiet just at the moment.
I've only very recently looked into the whole UE situation and think it may well be the (only) way forward for us. There are reasons that we can't file for bankruptcy, and other reasons that we can't apply for IVA. DMP would take us until we're around 250 years old so not really feasible
So that's why I'm here (sometimes I use 'I', sometimes 'us' - makes no difference, me and OH are in this mess together and will get out of it together. He doesn't have any say in the matter and does as he's told!!
Where did all that credit get spent? I've no idea. Not really. We've certainly not had flashy holidays, cars and clothes, we don't shop in Waitrose or M&S and we haven't frittered it away on the horses. Just general day to day living expenses that we never learnt to budget for, combined with the costs of renovating our ancient home, throw in a couple of teenagers who grew bigger and quicker than the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk and there we have £80,000 worth of debt. I think the lack of budgeting skills was our worst enemy for sure - we both had completely the wrong attitude, if we had available credit then we saw that as having cash available to buy stuff. Sadly the credit never seemed to run out, I think we still had a good £5-10k left available when I finally came to my senses (thanks to the financial rug being pulled out from under me when I got laid off from my main job). Panic as to how we would feed the kids and pay the mortgage were the first thoughts, and it was only when I started reading info at other forums that I realised that kids and mortgage came first - unsecured creditors could wait. So wait is what they've done.
So thats my/our story so far, I have maybe waffled a little so well done if you got this far - I find writing quite therapeutic so will have to make sure not to waffle when I do post all of my info in separate posts
The next thing I need to do is to send a CCA request to all creditors as none have had those so far, so I'll be off now to look for the correct template for that.
I've still got to apply for my OHs reports to gather dates for his too - I'm fairly sure most of his are old too but won't break out the beer for a long time yet! A very quick run down of our joint debts (click the links to go to that debt, each opens in a new tab):
- Barclaycard CC1 - £3162 - Sept 04
- Barclaycard CC2 - £1900 - Feb 06
- Goldfish CC - £14750 - May 98
- Barclay Loan - £14300 - July 09
- Barclaycard CC1 - £6720 - July 02
- Barclaycard CC2 - £5700 - Jan 07
- Hitachi Finance - £825 - May 10
- Honda Loan - £3500 - July 09
- HSBC CC - £7450 - Sept 94
- Marbles CC - £9600 - Aug 03
- MBNA CC - £8700 - Dec 06
- Mint CC - £2710 - Dec 03
- Natwest OD - £2181
- Santander CC - £1512 - Jan 07
Total today stands at £82,985.22
So you can see, we're in this mess pretty deep. But now we've finally taken our heads out of the sand we can begin to sort things out and move on.
All creditors have been sent token £1 payments for the past 4 or 5 months, some have grumbled hugely, others less so. I've only spoken to one (when I answered my phone by mistake
) but I refused to go through the data protection procedure so that call didn't last too long We've had a door step visit from one already, but whoops I mustn't have heard the door bell. Shame I missed him Most (possibly all now) creditors have had the 'don't bother phoning me' letter, and those who've suggested Local Collection Agents may be the way forward have had the 'Don't bother, I don't wish to make an appointment with you' letter so things are relatively quiet just at the moment.
I've only very recently looked into the whole UE situation and think it may well be the (only) way forward for us. There are reasons that we can't file for bankruptcy, and other reasons that we can't apply for IVA. DMP would take us until we're around 250 years old so not really feasible
So that's why I'm here (sometimes I use 'I', sometimes 'us' - makes no difference, me and OH are in this mess together and will get out of it together. He doesn't have any say in the matter and does as he's told!!
Where did all that credit get spent? I've no idea. Not really. We've certainly not had flashy holidays, cars and clothes, we don't shop in Waitrose or M&S and we haven't frittered it away on the horses. Just general day to day living expenses that we never learnt to budget for, combined with the costs of renovating our ancient home, throw in a couple of teenagers who grew bigger and quicker than the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk and there we have £80,000 worth of debt. I think the lack of budgeting skills was our worst enemy for sure - we both had completely the wrong attitude, if we had available credit then we saw that as having cash available to buy stuff. Sadly the credit never seemed to run out, I think we still had a good £5-10k left available when I finally came to my senses (thanks to the financial rug being pulled out from under me when I got laid off from my main job). Panic as to how we would feed the kids and pay the mortgage were the first thoughts, and it was only when I started reading info at other forums that I realised that kids and mortgage came first - unsecured creditors could wait. So wait is what they've done.
So thats my/our story so far, I have maybe waffled a little so well done if you got this far - I find writing quite therapeutic so will have to make sure not to waffle when I do post all of my info in separate posts
The next thing I need to do is to send a CCA request to all creditors as none have had those so far, so I'll be off now to look for the correct template for that.
Here you are 
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