I wanted to talk a little bit today about the feeling of being in debt, as this is something I live with every day, and with the way things are going, I will be living with it for a few years to come.
Getting divorced is an expensive business, and I am reminded of Grandpa in the Lost Boys, who remarks to his daughter, ‘Lucy, you’re the only woman I know who didn’t improve her financial situation by getting divorced’ but I think that was then. Now, women who divorce or are divorced most often end up in the kind of financial position you’d not wish on your worst enemy. Particularly women with children. Particularly, women with children who have the temerity to get a new partner and, shock horror, actually try to set up a home and thereby get some stability and normality back into theirs and their childrens’ lives. The state, it would seem, hate this kind of recovery.
I get a payment from my ex-husband but it isn’t much. However, as he keep reminding me, it’s what he’s required to pay by the state. Cold comfort. Meanwhile, I work term-time only and am at home in the school holidays, which is great for Ro and me, but means that I am paid only for 41 weeks of the year, not 52. On a local authority salary, this comes out as not much of the little it was to begin with.
I have another job, also, in the pub up the road. As anyone knows who’s done bar work, it’s tiring, smelly, hard on your feet, noisy and takes up a lot of time in return for (mainly) minimum wage or not much more. The cameraderie is good. The tips are useful. But a full 7 hour shift, or two, on top of a 40 hour week and you’ve got a recipe for exhaustion.
The reason I’m working like this is that I owe about £20,000. This is between credit cards and loans. I have elected not to become a bankrupt. I owe the money, and feel I should pay it back. I have entered a voluntary agreement with a debt management charity and have been working as hard as I can to pay off as much as I can for about 18 months now. It’s working well. Some things have been difficult to cope with. I now have no credit rating. None. My credit score has fallen from a near-ideal 968 to a terrible 420. I couldn’t apply for a library card and get it. I can’t hold a credit or store card. I can’t get an overdraft. I couldn’t rent a house, or get a car on lease, or take advantage of any of the little things that make modern life easier. I doubt I could even get a mobile phone contract.
The largest result is that I have to an extent lost my independence. Ironical that the very thing I value most, my ability to deal with life as an equal to anyone, has been taken away by my trying to do the right thing. In a practical sense, this doesn’t matter. I have a home and a car, a job and enough to eat. If I had to leave Three Chimneys for any reason, however, I wouldn’t do so well. Just the basics would be difficult. Finding a house to rent. Getting a phone.
Trying to better your circumstances isn’t easy. Nowadays, this sort of realignment takes balls the size of grapefruit to even contemplate, let alone attempt. My life is due to continue like this for at least another 4 years. After that, we’ll see, but I will have no good credit history so…
And all this, before I’ve factored in all the codswallop, bullshit and well-meant but utterly muddle-headed ‘advice’ I have been given by people who should know better – or at least know that they don’t know better, and so shut the frook up. The single cruellest thing anyone has said to me thus far is, ‘Well, you get *such and such a wage*. What are you spending it on?? Make a budget and stick to it!’. I mean. Please. Hello.
Ah honey, money is the root of all evil. In so many ways.
I completely sympathise and empathise – having a big debt hanging over your head is truly dreadful. Damocles and his sword were nothing on it.
But you’re doing the right thing, making the agreement with the debt management company to stop the interest (I hope) and make regular payments to clear it. 4 years seems like an age, but it will be over eventually, not that that is much comfort right now, I know.
I confess to having reneged on debts I accumulated in the UK after I’d been here a couple of years. I decided that even though I legally still owed the bank money, I’d be damned if morally I did, since I’d more than repaid the capital but the interest just kept spiralling. So, if and when I ever return to Blighty permanently I expect I shall have to face the credit blacklist myself – but for the moment I’m ignoring it. Its difficult enough for me to make ends meet and I don’t have a small child and do have a full-time job, so I can’t imagine how tough it must be for you.
{{{hugs}}}