Hi there and welcome to my week 47 of personal confessions, today will be looking at how I am doing with my “Debt is no small matter” series. This series I started to document my path to a debt free life and how I making this possible, I also mentioned my new motto “if you don’t have it don’t spend it, no more pay later on high purchase items”. In week 39 I talked about where I was and how I was doing, if you remember I mentioned it’s not been easy breaking old habits but it was also no particularly hard because I had a set goal in mind and I have a certain view of what I want my future to look or at least attempt to look like. Today I will go further and review just much I owed and just how much I owe currently, it may shock some people and others will just shrug because well what I owe to them is nothing.
What I owed
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What I owe
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What I will owe come January 2015
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£11,112.24
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£4,817.20
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£3,582.97
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So now you know how much debt I incurred in my 4 years at university (this is loans, credit cards and store cards). I will now explain exactly how this came about and this should not be taken as an excuse but the then current situation called for some.
August 2008 I get my results from college, I have passed and I can actually go to university. I tell my parents we are all very excited and my parents tell me how proud they are of me. Fast forward two weeks later when my parents sit me down and explain how we could not afford for me to go to university this year and how I will have to wait till next year when we become British permanent residents for me to get support to go to university. You can imagine my pain and frustrations but there was nothing I could do even with the scholar I was short £5,500 for Tuition and £5,000 for rent, food and other necessities. I remember crying forever, I remember how G was upset for me and how much we hated the situation but accepted it because there was nothing we could do. My parents just bought a house with a mortgage so we could not apply for loan and I had no credit history so could not apply for loan. Anyway, I decided to become full time social worker and raise money for next academic year (2009).
Fast forward September 2009, I had raised £4000 for tuition but had to remove £1000 to apply to become British permanent resident (not British just resident). I applied for government support but I was informed I was not eligible, I was gutted but again what can one do. I applied for a loan, got some credit cards and store cards (personal use and ego boasting nothing more) and ladies and gents this is how I slowly got into debt.
At the start of 2014 I had so many misfortunes happen to me but what I did not know was they were also a blessing in disguise because here I was with almost £12000 in debt and just after 8 months I have been able to reduce this debt to just under £5000. The blessings that the lord has bestowed upon me are just too great I cannot thank him enough and cannot stop praising him.
What has helped and worked for me (apart from the good lord) is calling each and every single company I owe and explaining my situation and agreeing to what I can pay them on a monthly basis. It was not always easy with some companies but I explained to them I could not give them what I did not have, I did a lot of expense and expenditure forms to come up with amounts that actually worked for me and the them. The important part was to make sure I could afford it after all my normal necessities had come out like rent, transport, utility bills etc. If you found that your debt is too overwhelming, speak to debt counsellors etc. they really help though they were not for me. Another option is debt free agencies which I personally don’t think were helpful to me but have been for other people.
Have you ever been in debt? How are you/did you deal(ing) with your debt?
