Facing up to debt

Paul and Mary were doing very well in life. Mary was a teacher and Paul was an engineer. They had three children all at school. Paul was offered a new job a long way from home, but as it was offering a substantial increase in salary along with a company car, Paul and Mary decided that he should accept the offer and they would relocate. As Mary was a teacher, it would be easy for her to find a job wherever they lived.

Paul took the job, but it was sometime before they could sell their house as the housing market was very bad. He lived in lodgings in the meantime which was quite stressful but at first but they got used to it. Eventually after a year they sold their house and took advantage of Paul’s increased salary to purchase a much better house than their previous one. The area they moved to was much more expensive, so they took out the maximum mortgage they could.

Making the repayments was harder than they thought, but the struggle was worth it; an investment in their future. Mary got pregnant and when the new baby was born decided to temporarily leave teaching to look after her. This put a greater burden on their finances but they thought they could cope.

Paul’s income was not enough to cover outgoings and soon debts were spiralling upwards. Paul kept this secret from Mary. He survived by juggling with credit cards and eventually was making cash withdrawals from cards to pay into his bank account to cover mortgage payments.

This was not sustainable, and eventually, once the phone calls from debt collectors started, he broke down and explained their situation to Mary. At first she was angry but she was a very methodical person. She looked at all the money they owed along with their income and realised that something must be done quickly and that proper debt management was called for. Having made that decision they talked to a debt management organisation that put in place a plan to manage their debt. They are now much more careful and soon their debts will be behind them.