Past the 2 Year mark!

Welcome back Donna,

Congratulations on the 739 days gamble free, you are doing really well and it's great to have an update from you.

I admire that you are taking responsibility but do feel that you are wise to consider some free financial advice to help you and potentially remove some of the stress you are feeling. 

There are a few other places that we can recommend alongside the Citizen Advice, that you can call and talk to over the phone.

• National Debtline – 0808 808 4000, www.nationaldebtline.org
• Money Advice Service – 0300 500 5000, www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk
• StepChange – 0800 138 1111, www.stepchange.org/
• PayPlan – 0800 280 2816,  www.payplan.com/gamcare/

Please know that our Advisers are available 24/7 on both our NetLine and our Helpline on 0808 8020 133, I understand you are doing really well but sometimes it can really help to talk.

Kind regards

ChrisK

Forum Admin

Hi Donna,

Congratulations on 739 days gamble free - that's a fantastic achievement and one you should be very proud of. It sounds like you'd benefit from some free financial advice so definitely take advantage of that - especially if your financial situation is changing in the near future.

All the best and well done, seeing posts like yours with 2 years GF is an inspiration for people like me!

Thanks so much for the replies, sadly I'm still burying my head in the sand and haven't made the call for financial advice. Not really sure why I'm doing this to myself because I know some of the pressure will come off once I've done it, just scared and embarrassed i think!

Good morning Donna,

Firstly congratulations on the amount of gamble free days.

When my gambling sins came to notice it was suggested to me to liaise with Stepchange Debt Charity to get myself out of the hole i had fallen into. I had 30k plus of debt.

I went on a debt management plan which was all organised by Stepchange. Interest, fees etc were all frozen allowing the overall debt to be reduced.

Bills, mortgage, car, food and lifestyle costs were all taken into account before any monies were passed to Stepchange. They then pass on monies to your creditors

I remember vividly the day i first spoke with them and it was not a pleasant experience but i am so glad i did.

My last debt payment is due 1st September.

Please consider making a call.

Best

Thankyou!

I am a stay at home mum with a working husband and 4 children. I'm not on the mortgage and can only contribute towards a few of the bills. I barely scrape by paying my monthly payments to credit cards and general living costs so my worry is my house being at risk and my husband being affected. As I don't work I wouldn't be able to pay much back as you have with stepchange. Does that make sense? Currently I am robbing Peter to pay Paul each month just to stop missing payments its so hard! I had to go bankrupt in 2010 due to a violent relationship (he took out so much debt in my name without my knowledge and spent equity I had received for a previous house i owned). This was a hard process and ideally I'd not have to repeat this. 

Apologies for my waffle i know I need to do something soon, like I say I'm just scared!

Hi,

Waffle away...........lol.

Everyones circumstances are different and i was robbing Peter to pay Paul. If an offer is made for repayment against a credit card they should have to accept it (this is my understanding so may not be 100% correct)

It may also be worth informing the card company. Eventually the minimum payment will catch up with you.

Best wishes for what decision you wish to make.

Yes, you are right! Even though I'm still making the minimum if I carry on like this it will bite me lol 

I had been doing so well with getting my credit rating back on track before being sucked into this horrible addiction too...oh well I'm sure maybe one day I can be straight :)) 

Thankyou for listening...makes all the difference to my day 🙂

Finally made the call to citizens advice! After a few weeks of phone appointments, a lot of embarrassment and a fair few tears i have now had a debt relief order granted as of 30th September. The relief is unexplainable and even though its going to be a long and hard road its begun and that's what I needed. Finances are still very tight and will be more so next year when my income drops but at least I won't have the mammoth amount of debt over me. For a while it felt like a bit of a 'cop out' having my debts wiped after a year but I dont think I could have coped for much longer!

Dx