The Next Chapter
Well after a little break I’m back to write the next chapter. As I wrote previously, we stopped our DMP with B&E with a consolidation loan ‘to pay off all our debts’. Well obviously it didn’t! They were just all in one name now and spread out over longer. Also secured on our flat. This was now about to come back and haunt us.
When my son was I think 6 weeks old I got a new job where I could work around hubby, so we were both still working full time. After about 1 year though we realised that we were going to need somewhere bigger to live as our daughter had her own room but we were sharing with the baby. We were running out of storage space aswell! We got the flat valued and it was worth around £110,000 with the huge rises in prices so we put it on the market. We had loads of interest and found buyers after a few weeks. The only problem we had was we could not get a mortgage to buy somewhere bigger! In fact we could not get a mortgage to buy the flat we were selling!! All because we had to pay off the secured loan! Basically we were going to have to rent, but this was going to cost a lot more than the mortgage we had been paying.
Anyway we took the decision to sell the flat and found a lovely house to rent in a much nicer area. We eventually moved in and we had actually got rid of the secured loan and made a few thousand profit after fees etc which we used to furnish the house. It took a while to get used to the idea of renting, but I still find it funny to this day that we couldn’t even afford to buy a flat the flat we were selling!! I will never again secure a loan on any property!!
At this point we decided no more credit cards and loans and we actually manged to stay like this for about the next 2 years!! We only spent what we could afford and actually did quite well. But life has funny ways of testing you doesn’t it?? We were both working and decided we could do with a new tv and sofa and we could actually afford it so why not?? We got them both on credit and they were together only £50 approx per month. But things start small don’t they? Soon we had another credit card each! You’d have thought we would now know how to be sensible, but no, the spending slowly started again! We didn’t see a problem as we were both working full time and earning good money. Then we got the biggest shock I have ever had!
I had been feeling unwell for a few weeks and been trying to lose weight, but I was putting it on, so I went to the doctors. Of course the first thing she asked was could you be pregnant? No way! I was on the pill and I was religious with taking it!! But she still did the pregnancy test along with some others and told me to phone back in a few days. Well, you would’ve thought after 2 babies I would be able to tell if I was pregnant! Well apparently not because I was! The doctor arranged for me to have a scan and off we went to the hospital thinking I could only be a few weeks gone. I went in alone and said I didn’t want to see the scan as I was thinking of terminating the pregnancy. The sonographer put all the details in an envelope for the doctor and off I went home. Of course I couldn’t resist, so I went up into the toilet with the envelope and opened it. Ten minutes later my husband had to come and look for me and found me in tears in the bathroom. I was 24 weeks pregnant! 6 months!! I had no choice but to have this baby – and to be honest I was relieved! Only problem was we had just taken out more credit and now I was going to have to stop work again and go part time. No way could we afford childcare for 3 kids!
Another major problem was I had just got a loan for a bigger car as mine was knackered. Now I wouldn’t be able to afford it! I will admit though we had great fun telling people about me being pregnant – especially the due date! The looks on their faces when they realised it was only 3 months away! People to this day do not believe I didn’t know!
Anyway life carried on and after baby was born I decided to go back to work part-time- again no choice really as we had debts to pay! We struggled on for a year, even gaining 2 more cards for transferring balances, but of course we didn’t cut up the old and soon they were all maxed out, new and old. Hubby had also acquired a loan for us to go on holiday again and then upped it to try and consolidate cards. It was soon out of control as our wages were only paing loan payments,rent, bills. We were having to raise limits on cards just to buy food and it was a vicious circle. Now I’m a little older and wiser I do blame the banks for letting us have more and more credit – surely they could see what was happening?
Anyway, come November 2005 we decided enough was enough and after seeing DFD advertising on TV we gave them a call.
