Sorry for the melodramatic subject heading but well its pretty much the truth.

Basically 5.5 years ago I met my ex and his credit was absolutely dire. Me being the young, naive and seemingly 'loved up' girl at the time, each time we'd go on holiday I'd get a bank loan in my name and he promised "i'll help pay!" which he never did. You've heard the story before, right?

SO anyhow this year the relationship inevitably broke up! I'm a little less silly and a little more bitter I guess you'd say, however, I'm REALLY struggling. I've got a £12,000 bank loan that I need to pay back each month, £1,700 on two cards..I'm overdrawn in my bank account and I rarely, if at all, have money to live. I barely have money to make it to work and the thought of Christmas is terrifying me.

Does anyone have any advice? I'm at my wits end, I never had problems like this and its got me in tears most nights. I know people say "money isn't everything" which it isn't I have a great group of friends and a fantastic family but I cannot continue like this.

Hi

I am guessing from your forum name that you are based in Scotland?

The advice is to seek professional help as to which process would be best for you. There are a number of debt solutions and to deternine which one is suitable, you would need to run through a fair bit of financial information. I doubt you would want to publish these on a public forum and you need the help of a qualified person anyway.

Use one of the following.

http://www.payplan.com/debt-library/scottish-residents.php

http://www.cas.org.uk/webdefault.aspx

http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/scotland/debt_advice.php

It is possible that you can arrange an affordable payment solution before Christmas, if you get on to this quickly, which may remove some of the stress from your shoulders.

Huckster

Thank you VERY much for your quick reply I appreciate it.

I'd be open to anything that would relieve this large burden of debt from my shoulders to be honest. I wouldn't really mind posting financial information, there's not much to tell I've been a silly girl and this is the inevitable backlash.

I've discussed things with my bank and they've been very unhelpful to be honest. What is an affordable payment solution if you don't mind me asking?

The way they do things in Scotland is different than for England and Wales.

But the solutions may include some form of repayment plan, where what you can afford to pay is calculated. An offer of reduced payments is then made to the companies you owe money to. To calculate an affordable repayment, you would need to work out a full budget, so you should write down details of income/spending.

If you speak to a debt councellor in Scotland, they can work out what is best for you. They deal with these matters every day, so are much better informed than anyone on this forum would be.

My advice is to contact one of the organisations noted earlier asap.

Huckster