My life in debt

After spending most of my life in debt I can only now look back and see where things went wrong.

About 7 years ago I was still married and had three children. Both myself and my now ex-husband were working; we lived in a peripheral estate in Glasgow. The house was hard to let as it was damp and hard to heat. I have a daughter who was born ill and has had over 100 operations. When the opportunity arose to buy a new home with central heating and no damp we jumped at the chance, not realising the consequences if anything went wrong.

Soon after we moved to the new home, the bank phoned us and asked if we wanted a loan. We jumped at the chance, as we could pay off the other debt and get equipment for the garden. After this, Christmas came, then birthdays and the children needed more clothes and shoes. We started to borrow again, and got to a stage we were paying out more than we earned.

We had to seek help from the Law Centre. We had our debts halved but still the interest rates were rising. We couldn’t get any more loans, so we turned to a moneylender. A year later my husband was sacked. He was barred from unemployment benefit for leaving his work the way he did. We contacted the insurance company for the mortgage and the bank loan to find that we were not covered.

Then I discovered that not only was my husband a bully at work and with me, but that he had abused my children as well. He was charged and we had to wait a year for a trial which was very public. This affected my health, and I had to leave my part time employment. I was barred from Income Support for 16 weeks and received half what I needed to live on. My husband had borrowed more money from moneylenders that I did not know about until he had left.

Eventually I had to give up. I could not make ends meet. My daughter brought me to my senses, when I discovered her feet were swollen from wearing tight shoes as she did not want to worry me by asking for new shoes that I could not afford to buy her.

I wrote to all the people I owed money to, telling them I could not make any payments. I explained to the bank that I could not keep up with the mortgage, and they repossessed the house. My lawyer helped me apply for council housing. I did not qualify for a social security grant to help with removal costs and carpets and I could not get a loan as I had too much debt. The moneylender continually followed me around for the money we owed.

I went to college and they followed me there and asked for my new address to call for the money owed. I will never as long as I live rely on moneylenders or companies that charge extortionate rates of interest. Crazy George’s in Glasgow offer a bed (advertised in Argos for £199) for £299, which, with interest payments, comes to nearly £800. How can they get away with this? They are parasites feeding on the fact that credit is hard to get if you are staying on this estate or unemployed.

I have now joined the management of a budgeting service that is attached to my credit union. This helps cut out the finance companies who charge extortionate interest rates such as Crazy George’s. The budgeting services helps to pay off debts without the interest rates that the companies on television offer. At the same time it helps you to save with the credit union: even 50p means that, once the debts are paid back you can save more and get a credit union loan without the high interest charges.

NB. Shelia's name has been changed.