I’ve had a debt repayment plan for three years now and as of today- have managed to pay off £1715.17 of.. hmm.. let me see.. um, yep- just under £40,000!!! (About half of which is the husbands)
(That’s $63,000 for you Yanks still in the homeland…)
I mean great- the balances are finally starting to drop (I think the companies have finally stopped adding fees, now. Maybe.) But, WTF? That’s barely anything.
I don’t want to declare bankruptcy, and it’s been a few years now. I think it’s time to start thinking about offering a settlement for these debts. This, of course, requires some sort of access to a decent percentage of £40k, but I think at least it is an option now. Or will be soon, when I have some money.
This debt really had me in a dark place before and right after we started the payment plan. It is truly frightening how quickly it can spiral out of control. Using cash advances from a credit card with a high limit to make the minimum payment for other credits, getting a loan to help pay off the credit cards. At the absolute worst of it, we were buying food and paying bills with credit cards we had paid off with other credit cards. Not great. It happened so quickly, as well. Inside of two years.
I had just moved to England, so I wasn’t working, my husband had a regular steady income and some savings. He also had the high limit credit card, everything looked fine. We didn’t take holidays abroad, or buy flashy things. We just did normal family things.
But, it adds up. I think there was a certain amount of denial as well about how bad it was. And more than once, the bank very helpfully automatically increased our card limit, by thousands.
I hope that within the next few years I (we) will find ourselves free from this debt and able to move on. Having learned a very good lesson, one that I will teach to my kids early, before they find themselves in the same position. I only wish it had been taught to me.
Undefeated Army of One 
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