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Blodwen’s UE Journey
Hello from Blodwen – I have been lurking on here for the last three months and only now plucked up the courage to actually type this. I have lost count of the amount of times I have typed a passage of text and then deleted it again to afraid to actually post anything!!!
Where do I start………I appreciate you all won’t want to read war and peace as your very busy people but I suppose I simply wanted to give you a wee bit of background about how we actually arrived at this stage. I envisage that it’s still the weight of the burden still weighing heavily on me and the guilt that I carry around day in day out for being in this situation to begin with that making me want to jot all this down!!
With a succession of bad luck our business started to fail and we desperately tried to keep it afloat month by month, investing more and more money into it to try and turn it around – it was all to no avail. After consolidating our debts and chasing our tails every month swapping the credit onto interest free cards etc we eventually ran out of steam and finances. We didn’t have any fancy cars on the drive, exotic holidays etc our debt simply was trying to keep the wolves from the door. We buried our heads in the sand for ages, neither my other half or I wanting to talk about it. The sleepless nights started, the stress and the minute by minute worry of losing our family home, every emotion you can think of we had it. I had visions of the debt collectors coming knocking on our door! and us being turfed out onto the streets!!
We then decided we had to seek help, that we couldn’t go on like this. This help was sought in the form of a DMP which was started 6 years ago. The relief we felt when we were told we weren’t about to become homeless was immense.
What we didn’t know at that time though was to save an emergency fund and we jumped straight in feet first as we were so grateful we had a lifeline at last.
Our total amount of debt was a colossal £100K. Even writing this thread makes me feel physically sick to the pit of my stomach. It churns around inside me as I am well aware everyone who is in debt knows what this feeling is like. Sadness, guilt, worry, fearing of judgement from others the list goes on!!
On our debt journey we never missed a payment – not once. We always met our deadlines and paid our mortgage. This continued whilst on the DMP until I came across this site in August of this year.
I have read and re read threads upon threads digesting it all. At first it was with utter disbelief reading that people – ordinary people like us are taking back their financial independence and tackling their debts head on with the actual lenders themselves. I would never had the nerve or the know how to do this myself – that was until I kept on reading all your stories, every day following your journeys and gleaning from you all I can.
Our UE journey started this August after finally plucking the courage up to ring Stepchange and ask them if we could put our account on hold whilst we requested our CCA’s from our creditors. I nearly fell at the first hurdle as I was grilled by the other person on the other end of the phone. Something just clicked inside me that day and I became more determined than ever to go down this route. I am not saying for one minute that I don’t feel guilty, I do but I am hoping this will subside in time.
When I joined this forum, I initially emailed Niddy with a couple of queries with regard to some responses we have had. I didn’t have the nerve to come on here and ask any questions. He has been an amazing help to us so far and has deemed two of our debt UE and two EN. In the last couple of weeks I have realised that I can’t do this alone and need people like you to hold my hand on this journey so to speak.
You have already given me the confidence to come this far – hence this post and this diary!!
When I started this diary I totted up exactly how much we have already paid off our debts in the last six years and it is approx. £21k I so wish I had known about you all earlier and started this journey sooner as we would have been well on our way to being SB by now.
Anyway…..it is what it is and we are here now, in the right place with the right help. I know I have waffled on oodles and you are all probably reaching for a glass of the hard stuff just to cope with reading all this lol……but I want to finish this thread with a HUGE THANK YOU already to you all for your help so far.
Done…….finally got to the end of the thread without deleting it!!! Thanks for listening to my ramblings on!!
Tesco Bank
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