any help for the debt problem

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Q. am in about £30000 debt with credit cards loans etc i am having problems paying now and am just paying of one card with the other is there any way out of this black hole

A. _I normally advise: Pay the minimum possible on all debts and whatever else you can afford, pay off of the debt with the smallest balance. Every month or so you manage to kill off one of the debts. The next smallest now becomes your smallest. And so the cycle goes until the debts are gone. but 30,000 pounds is another story. Unless your income is likely to be able to clear this before retirement, bankruptcy may be the option at the end of your tunnel. It is not a nice free and easy escape route though. It is stressful and unpleasant. If I am the only person that replies to you I would strongly advise the Citizens Advice Bureau. There are people that can negotiate a reduction in the debts for you, they may be able to put you onto someone that can do this for you for free. One final thing........ If you opt to get a larger loan to reduce the monthly payments, please please please cut up any cards you have so that you are not tempted in the slightest to make your situation worse. _Go and see the citizen's Advice Bureau. Cut up all your cards and never get any more. However, do not hand them back as this has a different impact on your credit track record. Write lots of letter and make lots of phone calls keeping everyone in touch with what you are doing and what the situation is. Ask them to freeze the interest so the debt doesn't keep on growing. Mostly they'll refuse, but if some of them agree that's better than not asking. If you talk on the phone, always make a note of the name and phone number of who you speak to, as well as making note of what they say. Do lots of graphs of the overall sitaution - partly for your own satisfaction and partly so you can show other people just how carefully you are monitoring the situation. it doesn't matter how far in debt you are, so long as in a months time, and 6 months time, you are less in debt than now. You've dug your self into quite a big hole. So be willing to spend several years digging yourself out. And take some pride in the fact that you are digging your way out, whereas lots of other people are still digging themselves deeper into debt! 30 grand at credit card rates is only the size of a 60 grand mortgage. Sure it's significant, but if you've got the income to cover the payments and something towards paying bits off the debt, it's quite manageable over the long term. Spend some time sorting your habits and beliefs out. In the past you have been heading for financial self-destruction, but on the way you have been free to flash plastic and enjoy an affluent lifestyle. In the future you will have to live a very different lifestyle - you won't be able to flash plastic at everything that takes your fancy, and you won't even be able to use all your income to spend on things you want to buy because your first priority will be fighting your way out of debt. You may feel very poor for many months. That's what the graphs are for. To remind you of why you're doingit. To start with the progress on the graphs (and I mean big graphs, colours, on the wall!) will seem slow. But they accelerate, so to start with, be happy with any kind of modest progress, just head in theright direction, even if only by a fiver a month. The road to being sorted is much longer than the road to total financial self-destruction! And less fun - but much more rewarding in the long run. _You really need some kind of professional advice - maybe a CAB, as Dave Storey suggested, or your bank ... If you have a reasonably well-paid job you have some chance, but it won't be easy. General points: a) stop spending on any non-essentials. b) If you have a lot of debt at a high interest rate (more than 15%, say) try to negotiate some kind of loan at a lower rate. If you have a mortgage investigate adding to that. c) If you have a car, consider selling it; likewise with any other reasonably valuable assets (what did you spend the money on?!) These are just suggestions, a lot depends on your personal position _If you've got that much debt I would have thought that you would find it difficult obtaining a loan/HP/credit of any sort including other credit cards. If you re-applied to your existing credit card companies do you think they would accept you taking into account your current financial status/history? If the answer is yes then it probably doesn't matter whether you hand your existing cards back or whether you cut them up instead. Personally I think you should keep your options open, cut up your cards, keep making the minimum payments plus any extra you can afford, then when you're in a better financial situation simply phone up the credit card company(s) and say you've lost the cards (or whatever) and ask for replacements. Why take on any additional risk of not being able to get credit in the future?

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