Diary of a Debt Advisor: C for Care

one older gentleman ended up needing my debt advice in order to enable him to still be able to afford his carer.

Mr Smith was around 85 years old, and, whilst he still lived at home, he hired a regular carer who travelled over from the local care home every day to feed him and make sure he was coping alone. He lived in a one-room bedsit and struggled to look after himself. Unfortunately the amount Mr Smith was receiving from his pension just wasn’t enough to allow him to continue paying the care home from whom he’ d hired the carer and he began to fall behind on his payments when they fell due.

The reason Mr Smith was finding it so difficult to pay his outgoings stemmed back to credit card payments from years ago. Rather than paying off all his debts at once he had got into the habit of only making the minimum repayments – which meant he had more to pay over a longer term. Whilst he had been earning he had just about managed to break even, but as his pension was so slim and the amount he owed was £450 per month he was unable to manage his debts and, because he couldn’t pay the care home, his carer just stopped turning up.

I managed to speak to his creditors and get the minimum monthly payment down to a manageable £120, which meant that Mr Smith could actually pay back the council and still had enough money left over to get his carer back.

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Diary of a Debt Advisor: R for Relationships

After years in the debt management industry I thought it was finally time to lift the lid on some of the most interesting cases of my career. Every week I will reveal an exclusive insight into the people behind the debts and how I managed to help them....

This week, I have been thinking a lot about relationships – about the huge impact a bad one can have on an individual’s ability to cope with debt. I am not necessarily just referring to a relationship with a partner (though of course romantic relationships can definitely be tainted by monetary worries) but also familial relationships, with children, parents, siblings....

One African lady that I came into contact with had been made physically unwell as a result of struggling with debt. Erika had a highly paid job with the NHS, earning around £40,000 per annum and working significant hours. Unfortunately, she had a son who suffered with autism. The boy wasn’t a bad lad, but he was keeping her awake because he was smashing up his bedroom every night and causing all sorts of damage to the house. Erika could not concentrate on her job due to severe lack of sleep – which escalated to such an extent that, in the end, she had to start reducing her hours in order to cope with the situation, and to be there for her son.

She was not working more than 16 hours per week – surviving on a fraction of her wage combined with some benefits. By the time I came into contact with her, however, she had had to give up her job completely to cope with her son (who was getting worse) and she was unwell with sheer physical exhaustion.

She confided in me during our meeting that it was not only coping with her son that was adversely affecting her health, she was also being hounded day and night on the phone, via letters and emails from creditors. Erika told me, whilst pointing her finger to a picture on the wall of Jesus Christ, that if it hadn’t been for him, she would have done something very stupid. I felt so sorry for this poor lady, who had to cope with so much – and after much negotiation, I managed to reduce her creditors’ payments by 75 per cent.

Another lady I helped was suffering from debt as a result of a romantic relationship. Her husband was a gambler, a womaniser and an alcoholic. Having used up all his credit and with his own credit file in a bad way, he forced his wife to go out and get credit cards and loans for him in her name. Of course, she began to struggle and when she was not longer able to secure credit because he was not paying back what he owed, he threw her out on the street and changed the locks. Mary was left with no money and huge debts. After living on the sofa of a friend for some time, she eventually met a builder and fell in love. He was a widower, who soon asked her to move in with him. It was Pete who eventually contacted me to see if I could help her, because he could not bear to see her being chased by creditors.

Luckily, I was able to help her get her payments down to an affordable level, with the help of her new partner. The poor girl was sobbing her heart out the entire time I was there, but in the end, when I was able to give her the good news, she came over to me and thanked me for giving her back her life.

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Diary of a Debt Advisor: F for Family

I’ve always been a very family-orientated person. I’m still close to my parents and my siblings, and I know how tough it can be to watch one of your relatives struggling. 

I think that’s why Matt’s case really meant a lot to me. He was a young, good looking, single guy who seemed to have it all. He had quite a good job and lived in a multi-million pound house. So it came as a bit of a surprise to me when Matt responded to our advertising. We had the first consultation at his house, and I can remember thinking to myself as I pulled up outside his amazing house – ‘what am I going to be able to do to help this guy?’Matt was up-to-date with all of his payments on a couple of loans and some cards, but was really struggling due to the help he was having to give to his family. After talking to him, it emerged that the house he was living in belonged to his parents. His father, who used to be a successful businessman, had unexpectedly had a stroke and was now unable to work. With no income from his father and a large mortgage still to pay off on the house, Matt was struggling to make ends meet. The family had tried to sell, but with the current disappointing market, unfortunately they had no luck.Obviously, further borrowing was just not an option. After talking both with Matt and the rest of his family, we came to the conclusion that entering a debt management plan (DMP) would be the best option. This would reduce Matt’s payments by several hundred pounds a month and allow him to contribute more to his family’s household expenses.What’s more, a couple of months later I was contacted again by the family and ended up providing DMPs for each of his parents and for his younger brother who had recently lost his job.As a result of these plans, we were able to help the whole family by reducing their monthly unsecured debt repayments, which enabled them to retain their house and cover their essential expenses.
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