I’ve had some pretty spectacular troubles with debt over the past few years and it’s only recently I’ve began to see a bit of light at the end on the seemingly endless tunnel of being penniless. I am currently sat at home a little pissed off because I’m broke as a joke and I’ve another 2 weeks to wait until pay-day. With little or nothing to do other than write my blog and watch crap on the television I find myself looking back over the decisions I made and the terrible choices that led toward the current predicament I’m embroiled in. As things stand I am working with a company who shall remain nameless to sort my debts out thanks to something called an ‘IVA’ – Individual Voluntary Agreement. The future will begin to look much brighter and easier to manage once the next 2 weeks are gone and behind me.
So how did this happen? Well, in all honesty the single-most contributing factor is me and how utterly terrible with money I am – something that I intend to rectify now – and my ability to not look toward the future and live very much in the present. I’m the kind of guy that will spend £100 on a night out and worry about the consequences when they arise. This is something that has truly escalated from a small problem to a large one and I found myself paying out upwards of £800 a month (excluding rent) to pay back loans that totaled somewhere in the region of £18,000.
It's all about the Benjamins.
It all started 5 years ago when I took a loan of £5000 from my then bank to cover my monthly payments. My workplace at the time where going bust and owed me 2 months of salary they were unable to pay and I had eaten into my savings to keep myself afloat. The bank essentially threw the ‘pre approved’ loan at me and I signed the papers quickly and without any real thought. This is one of the biggest mistakes of my life as 3 days later I received a cheque from the owners for 2 months of pay. Instead of returning the loan (I still had the option) I decided to keep it and go on a spending spree that consisted of many nights on the town, a set of turntables and pretty much every DVD on the market. 3 months later the spending bug had really hit me and I found myself with income that didn’t match my expenditure and overdraft facilities so I went back to the bank and got myself another loan, this time to reconcile my finances. Again, the bank were only to happy to throw the money at me. As the years past the same cycle continued before I found myself having to get a loan from a small company with a questionable reputation. The leant me a further £2000 that I thought I would use to pay off my overdraft and start fresh. Huge mistake number 2. Now my outgoings were an astonishing £890 a month and I needed to sort myself out.
The IVA has proved my salvation. My monthly payments are now manageable and once I pass the next two weeks of being broke I should find myself solvent. I don’t blame the bank for throwing loans at me, as well as overdrafts - I blame myself for being so fucking stupid that it ever had to come to this. My credit is non-existent now and I’m in the IVA for the next 5 years but it is a lesson well learnt and one I won’t be repeating. From now on I’ll be sensible with what I buy and use the money I make from the occasional moonlighting as the means to buy myself the cool stuff that I want.
Being broke and in debt is a fucking stupid problem to have. It’s very easy to get yourself in huge debt problems by allowing something relatively small to go unresolved until it grows into something huge and unmanageable. I’ve been there once, there won’t be a twice.
In my headphones:
- Breathe by TelePopMusik
- Ya Mama by The Pharcyde
- Night Beats by Thomas Bangalter
1 Comment
November 9, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Don’t worry, I’m really bad with money too. Like you said though, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.