How to rebuild your finances?!

Hi Jack - A few minutes more to go, but Happy 21st Birthday! You may not feel very happy at the present time, but this could be the best thing you have done in your life - seeking help from the good people on this site.

I will leave the financial advice to others better qualified and with more experience than me, but as for your second question - yes, you can really help yourself by visiting the site every day (if possible) and by reading the stories here. Start a Diary to keep track of your progress and try to contribute to other Diaries. You will find great support - and will also see that there are many young people like yourself afflicted by this terrible habit.

Finally, I urge you to join the '2014 Challenge' which you will find on the 'Overcoming problem gambling' page. It's a sort of club within a club where all you have to do is to introduce yourself and then check in once a week to let us know how you are doing. Our leader is Mr Brightside who keeps tabs on us and gives us encouragement through the week and an update at the weekend. Go and have a look at it - it's so supportive.

Best wishes for your journey - you can do it!

Joanna

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Hi Jack,

Congratulations on being so self-aware at 21 and realising you have an issue with gambling. It took me about 14 years more and I wish I could have stopped at 21! All the money I'd have saved for sure, but more than that - all the mental torment, self-loathing, crushed self-esteem, waking at 4am in a cold sweat wondering why I feel so bad - then remembering how much I'd lost hours earlier and that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach - the TRUE emotional cost of being addicted to gambling. It's a clichéd old saying but so true - we can't win because we can't stop.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting to you is because you ask about paying down debts. You have two choices (this is just my personal opinion and you must research options yourself as I'm not a professional, but I can tell you what worked for me). 9k is a manageable amount of debt - always make sure you pay your 'priority debts' first (Rent, Council Tax, Gas/Electric).

Every other debt is called 'non priority' - (friends, water, PayDay Loans - sort this most importantly because even though a non priority debt they are true s**m and will add charges daily. Credit Cards, Loans, Store cards, etc) If you can cover your priority debts each month and have a little bit left over to pay the rest of them, then contact them all and make an offer of what you can afford (they may ask you to fill in an I&E - Income and Expenditure form, but that's no biggy). That will mean all the interest and charges get frozen, so you only have to start paying off the original debt. (The debt to your friend will hopefully be easier if you can be honest with him/her about your situation - and even if you can't at least he/she can't legally add interest/charges)

However, if you really cannot afford to pay off the debts at all, then I'd suggest looking into a DRO: Debt Relief Order for debts under £15k where if you only have £50 left over each month after all your priority debts and living costs are paid. CAB (Citizens Advice Bureau) , Stepchange, or National DebtLine (google them) are FREE services that can advise you on this. NEVER pay anyone or any Debt Management Company to sort out your debts. (DRO ain't a get-outta-jail-free card, because even though all your debts are written-off after a year, your credit rating is f****d and you'll find it hard to ever get a mortgage, etc - which is a big deal so young).

Most importantly, stop gambling - and this will hopefully become an easier ask once you've got your debts under control and don't feel the need to chase losses so hard. Remember the old saying - 'when you're in a hole, stop digging'.

Hope I've helped. I cleared my debts this way and WAS 5 years gamble-free until this weekend where I went batshit crazy and tried my luck. Lost, and remembered all the reasons why I needed to give up permanently.

Best wishes,

Molehole

Hi Molehole

Thanks for your response!

Im quite lucky to not have a mortgage etc, all i pay is my mum rent. The 4.5k debt is with a friend and they are the only person bar this site that knows about my gambling and he's letting me pay him back monthly! My only big concern is a payday loan, ******** it is! £500 has to be paid this month, not sure how i can sort that out. Is there anyway i would be able to sort something out with them without ruining my credit rating (even though its probably terrible anyway!). I have 2 options and that was the first one; to contact them and ask if we can sort something out or the other option is to withdraw £500 from my credit card put it in my bank and pay it off that way, but i dont know what a credit card would charge me for that.

Could you give me any more advice??

Thanks a lot!

Jack

Jack - payday loans are s******s.

Credit card companies are less so.

If you have the credit to pay off your outstanding PDL then yes, I'd recommend you do that, then work out how to pay off the credit Card in a few months time.

From bitter experience. PDL charge 500% per month, credit cards maybe 18% per year.

(only my personal opinion - take better advice)

As I said though - stop gambling and dreaming that we can win the money lost back though. That way madness lies.

mx

Hi Jack,

I always worried about my finance's, which is one reason I carried on gambling(crazy huh)

Im also young and last year I haddebts that equalled about £9700. I had 10 payday loans, an overdraft and owed money to close ones. I did'nt know where to start...

So I started by calling all of my lender's and told them about my problem and that im stuggling to pay. Pretty much all of them agreed to freeze the interest and I would have to pay it off in monthly installment's. Each one varied with some companie's stating I have 2 month's of installments with one agreeing to 4 month's of installments.

The best thing is because I admitted my problem to them, as a 'responsible' lender they cannot lend to me anymore 😀

I have been off gambling for 4 months and yesterday my last ever payment to a payday loan company went out(my last 4th installment)

I do still owe money to close one's and I had to sit them down and talk them through my plan. They were scepticle at first as I had tried and failed many times to stop, but they agreed to wait.

I can now look forward to paying this off and have already made small payments here and there when I had spare cash. Not for the fact that im slowly paying it off, but it was just show my intent and that im serious..

My overdraft will be the last, as that's my own personal debt, but from £9700 im down to £4500 now. Financial's are pretty much the quickest thing to clear up, its the devastation we do to relationshipswith people that often takes longer.

Hope this helps,

Scambling

Hi Jack, I totally get you and am in a similar predicament but I have a child as well. I dont know if you have someone you completely trust but I do and have told her everything and she has taken control of all my money! Its the hardest thing but at least I know I cant spend it and my bills are paid. It doesnt stop me from trying to gamble but its a first step to recovery. There are ways to start again from fresh where finance is concerned but addressing the issues is also key. If you can share this with someone it will be a huge relief and a start xxx