Ha!
The only debt I have is my mortgage.

Five times the salary over 30 years mind.

Looking forward to paying that until the day I retire.

I like the daytime loan ads though - why on earth did the marketing people from one such firm think that featuring a woman who for all the world was Jabba the Hut in a dress taking out a 'home owner loan' (presumably to fuel her pie addiction) was going to drum up business? 'So fat you can't leave the house to work? Up to your chins in the sh&t? Can't afford your next ten meals? We can help....'
(Danny Fishcharge Half arsed, smart arsed, on & off a lard arse sinc, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:44, Reply)

Serious Serious Debt
I made friends with a really cool Korean bloke through both work and friends-of-friends. We got on like a house on fire. Well, not like a concrete house, cos they don't burn very well. But I digress.

He wasn't a really close mate, but a friend enough to catch up with every few weeks or so. Then he decides to get married. To a Japanese girl. Who he wants to bring to Australia. (As this is where this story is being writ).

After one or two fateful lagers, he pops the question. To me! Would I please sponsor his future wife to come to Australia in holy matrimony. Of course I said yes, in the wisdom of never having met her, not knowing him uber-well, not knowing what it entailed, and not being really very aware of the infinite un-love in which Koreans and Japanese hold each other. And I was pissed.

--- skip paperwork and 3 months ---

The crux of the above skippage was that for 2 years after she got here I was liable for any costs the Aus govt may incur for her going on welfare, being a murderer, forgetting a library book etc. I'd never met the girl, but was assured she was lovely, and she looked lovely in the photos. And I had to sign legally binding stuff that said I knew her like a sister, even though they were living half a country away.

The potential cost to me? Oh, $200,000+ (invent your own figure, really) which is a shitload of quid/lira/drachmas.

It's the best debt I've ever been in - it's now 4 years on and they had their first kid 5 weeks ago. Beautiful, and I'm responsible.

I still haven't met her.

Maybe a sparkly sparkle in what appears to be an urky gloom of QOTW dread...
(baldie, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:40, Reply)

Oops!
I thought I'd registered my debit card on Paypal. So, when I thought I was being careful, buying books, DVDs etc a few times a month when I knew there was money in my account, I was in fact gradually maxing out the credit card which I had smugly stuck at the back of a drawer all pleased with myself for resisting the temptation to spend on it.

I guess that'll teach me to never open letters from the bank.
( Afinkawan Yes I can hear you Clem Fandango, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:38, Reply)

Oh boy…debt! Don’t talk to me about debt
Where to start?

As you all probably know by now, I wasted the best part of my youth having fun. This was brought on by a worse than expected (by me anyway) set of ‘A’ Level results meaning I didn’t get the uni place I craved.

Consequence? One year working/bumming around, one year wasted on a course I hated, another year working/bumming around – temp jobs, bar jobs, factory jobs; grape picking, olive picking, orange picking, satsuma picking…

…then just before my 22nd birthday I met Mrs Grimsdale (lets call her Xena), wild, exotic, sexy, and before too long we were an item. She was poor in a way that someone with no family, no career, no savings is poor. She lived hand to mouth, walking home to Cricklewood from the West End towards the end of the month because her money had run out.

I was wealthy by comparison: I had a credit card, some savings in the Post Office amounting to a massive £500 (hey, this was 1984) and I had a supportive family. On the minus side, see above.

I’m not sure if there is any way to cut this story short, but perhaps if I say that we spent the savings on a two month trip through France to Portugal then came home to live in a bedsit (see last week) and look for work, both got shit temp jobs then made the earth-shatteringly bonkers decision to have a baby…perhaps you can start to appreciate why debt has been a constant nagging worry over the last 20 years, except when it becomes a very large and urgent worry at other times.

I don’t want to go into too much detail in case my daughter ever reads this, so I’ll blur the edges slightly, but Xena has low self-confidence despite being a beautiful, talented and very intelligent woman, this has meant that between looking after the kid, getting a good degree and little bits of work, I have been virtually the only bread-winner since we met. Now she is self-employed but not in a way that creates an income stream, the kid is at university and bleeding us dry.

For the last ten years or so I’ve been working for a multi-national financial services company who shall remain nameless. Starting as a temp, I’ve clawed my way up the greasy pole but seem to have hit a glass ceiling, having started a decade too late.

We were lucky, my folks helped us buy our first house in London in the late 80s when prices were sky-rocketing. Then they started to fall, we had to sell and we managed to just get back what we paid – of course, if we still lived in that house, it would be worth about 10 times what we paid for it. As it was, we moved north, bought cheap, borrowed against the positive equity, did the place up, moved again, etc. the sorry tale continues.

I now have more credit cards than I need and a personal loan, with total debt of around £18,000. That is on top of a mortgage which is four times my salary – details withheld because I can’t bring myself to type it. Out-goings per month; mortgage + council tax + utility bills + credit card minimums + loan repayment = my salary just about. Food, fuel, paying for daughter, sundries…don’t ask.

Still, on the bright side….
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:37, Reply)

I'm on the run from AmEx
The stupid twunts gave me a £2K credit limit back in the days when I suffered from Minimum Wage. I stopped making minimum payments about 2 years ago, and have since moved house twice and got a new job earning an extra £10K p.a. By now I probably owe them at least £5K. I would consider contacting them to arrange to pay them back, but it's probably a bit late now and it would be really rather embarrassing. "Ummm, yes. I went into hiding from you a couple of years ago because I wanted to spend my money on food and rent instead of paying you. I'd now like to start paying off what I owe you if that's ok? But not too much at once - maybe £100 a month? kthxbye."

I also owe maybe £7K to SLC, £600 on store cards (after paying off about £1.5K towards them already), and £1K to pay off my student overdraft from 6 years ago (I'm currently paying a bargainous £35 per month towards this. Probably for life). You do have to wonder why these companies give credit to people who clearly can't afford it.
(bedsitmartyr : Doctor of Bottles, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:35, Reply)

all in all
Debt isn't a major problem for me, £7000 loan over 2 years that im quarter of the way through and a few hundred on credit card but will be wiped over the next two months.

but..

At 32, having savings of £1500, no pension, renting, owner of a crap rusty beast of a car and single i think im going to be a bit fooked in later life.

Retirement plan? 68 year old gets hammered and robs a bank, either I get away with the loot and live the high life or get 3 square meals and a roof over my head courtesy of her majesty.
(Halfy By light alone, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:33, Reply)

Actually got a story to add, finally!
When I was about 22, my girlfriend dumped me (by post), I lost my job and the bank called in my overdraft all on the same day.

And I was in Liverpool at the time, as the icing on the cake..
( Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:26, Reply)

Here's my two pennyworth...
I am in a serious situation. Help me B3tans!
I have:

1) a 216.000 euro mortgage
2) a husband who, bless him, earns a pittance. Slave labour is alive and well, people
3) life insurance
4) Student Loan debts
5) am currently under investigation for forgetting to do my tax return last year :o( stupid stupid, i know)
6) christmas coming up
7) 10 euros in the bank
8) a cat with a death wish who costs me on average around 200 euros every few months, getting him back from the brink of death. Some examples: throwing himself four floors down, eating paint, drinking water from the mop-bucket, burning his feet on the recently switched off stove and last but certainly not least having a bloody stroke.

We are addicted to sex, beer, fags and buying stuff.

I'm just off to buy a gun.
(The Apeface Cherub is not a cunty-uber-cunt, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:04, Reply)

no details, but suffice to say
if I emigrated, on average, British people would be thin and debt free
( alnapp B3ta? Oh I just remembered about that and posted @, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 8:56, Reply)

not doing well
Quite like the odd confessional. A few years ago I bought a house and sold it for 20K profit in the space of 3 months however thinking that worked well I bought another one with my ex. 2 years later we had a property worth £250,000 but I was struggling to keep up the repayments, Then I found this great thing because of chip and pin I could go to the atm and get cash from my credit card. Then pay this cash into my account so that I could make the payments on the mortgage. Do this a few times an you realise that suddenly you've got £30k in debt on top of the mortgage. Decide to clear this my taking out a secured loan on the property then go to work abroard for a few months. Ex insists I fly back to UK every weekend which isn't cheap but I was due to earn a lot of money. Got screwed over by the company I went to work for and they won't pay me the £10k they owe me for two more years. and have built up a further £20k in debt from living expenses. Split with ex and try to sell the house she wants me to find a further £13k to pay off part of the mortgage so that she can have the house to herself. Try to sell the house and its not made a massive profit so currently my financial position is minus £25,000, I have a property that I won't see any profit from and an ex asking for £13,000. The best of it is I am a qualified financial adviser. Best advice I can give you is don't build up credit card debts, don't take things on finance, don't buy houses with money grabbing psychopaths, save 10% of your gross salary every month for long term stuff, and save for short term luxury buys, that way you don't buy on impulse. I'll be debt free in 5 years if I stick to my plan, but god I wish I'd just pocketed my £20K the first time round. Anyway I'm off to phone the parents for some more money.
(b3tan senseless is slowly getting older, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 8:44, Reply)

Happy ending
Like a lot of people, I've always found it easier to spend money than not, even when its my banks money and not strictly mine. To this end, I managed to rack up nearly 15K in debts on credit cards, personal loans and overdrafts.

This left me in a whole heap of fun when I lost my job and had all my creditors breathing down my neck. My bank didn't help much, other than motivating me to get a new job very quickly by charging me excessively for each debt payment I missed (where is in the point in penalising someone who has no cashmoney anyway?)

Thankfully, I got so pissed off at this point, with being fearful for answering the door or my phone, in case bailiffs were to turn up, that I got in touch with all my creditors and made arrangements for all my debts to be paid off at vastly reduced rates until I got myself back in work. I started feeling a lot better knowing that end was in sight, even if I would be paying off debts for 5 years or so.

This summer, I decided to turn the tables on my bank. A friend had told me that the system of charges being levied on current bank accounts was being challenged by lots of folks as being unlawful, and people were actually threatening their banks to court over getting their charges refunded!

Ace! I thought, and duly looked into this. This ended with me filing court proceedings against my bank this past summer. Several months of legal wrangling ensued, letters back and forth between me and my banks solicitors. Them constantly reminding me that I hadn't a snowballs change in hell. Well guess who caved in 3 weeks ago in an out of court settlement? My banks solicitors, thats who, the money grabbing scumbags. £5K in my pocket, thankyouverymuch! :D This was all my banks charges for 6 years, plus about a grand interest.

Now I've used this cashmoney to finish paying off most of my debts and treat myself to a few massive benders and am nearly debt free to boot.

No apologies for lack of depressing story :D
( LemonEntryMyDearWatson This time, Moriarty, the hand is on the other foot, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 8:35, Reply)

I have a mate...
Money used to be a problem for me. It would sometimes keep me awake at night with worry when I was in the red.

Fortunately, after years of crappy low paid jobs that made absolutely no sodding use of my qualifications, I found myself a good job and have managed to work up through the ranks to something that pays extremely well.

Consequently, money is not really a problem for me anymore. I had to work damn hard to be where I am but it’s worth it. I’m just about to buy my second house in a really nice area with the missus and still have about £40k left over to furnish it and buy nice toys for me.

However, this QotW is about debt and so I bring you…

A friend of mine successfully managed to ring up £25k in debts in a very short space of time on numerous credit cards. His father, being an idiot, decided to pay the debts off and cut up my friend’s credit cards. My friend then went out and got more credit cards and maxed them too.

Net result – his father refused to pay off debt again (understandably). So, my mate had to get a consolidation loan that basically means he will be paying off £55k over 30 years. Oh he has two kids too.

Just think, in thirty years, once I have paid off my mortgage, he will still be living in rented property, possibly being moved on every few years, with bugger all to show for it.

Twat.

P.S. I just phoned up the bank to pay off my credit card. The balance is £8. Yes, eight pounds! How will I ever cope?
(High Rise Drifter, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 8:34, Reply)

Fuck me
This QOTW makes for some depressing and scary reading.
( PFC Hudson, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 7:53, Reply)

Shazbat!
In the 2nd year at school I paid the class slapper (well, one of the 2 class slappers) 50p to show me her tits.
She took the money and legged it, cow.
What a fuck up
(LunarJim, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 7:45, Reply)

just go bankrupt

for God's sake. Seriously, Australia at least has a growing debt crisis - it's going to crash one day, and the longer it takes the bigger the debt will pay and the harder the crash will be.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 7:38, Reply)

I'm on an IVA
to cover £23+K's worth of debt just with HSBC alone.

Basically I was a HSBC bitch, re-extending my loans etc every year for 6 years to pay for pissups, holidays and the occasional needed facility (eg wedding, car). A few months back I was paying approx 90% of my wages per month on bills.

In fairness, I did have some LEGENDARY PISSUPS though. They were awesome. I mean, waking up in another town awesome :D

Took out an IVA a few months ago to cover for a 5 year payback plan. This thankfully has been accepted and I'm now covered when mini-Jeccy turns up for end of Feb. I'm also away from HSBC, who seem to use breathing as an excuse to charge you; I mean you could have £2 in the account, get charged for a refused Direct Debit, then the following month made overdrawn by thier "Refusal of Direct Debit charge", and you get charged the following month. I'm glad that last month, I got to tell them to royally fuck off :D

Personally, I'm never going to touch a loan again; I hate money. Having it makes me feel sick, which is why I normally give whatever money I have to the wife to look after.

No wonder I spacked out on the Virgin Money Image Challenge the other week :)
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 7:30, Reply)

my friend's sister-in-law

had a boyfriend, who asked her to go guarantor for a loan for him, for a car I think.

When he completely failed to pay it, this meant she was liable for the entire debt.

He apparently still rings her occassionally asking to get back together, although he feels her condition that he first pay her back is unreasonable.

Apparently this is a very common way of getting into debt, especially for women.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 7:19, Reply)

Paypal
I've always been careful with my money, and so I was thoroughly surprised to receive 3 Paypal notification emails, saying that my $600, $300 and $200 transactions had been received by Mr Chinese fella I've never heard of.

And by surprised I mean bricking it.

Straight away I contacted Paypal to tell them that the transactions were fraudulent, that I didn't have that kind of money, that I didn't even know the recipient. But wouldn't you know it, this was a Sunday, and the next day was a bank holiday.

They finally got back in touch on the Wednesday, by which time it was apparently too late to halt the transactions.

After weeks of arguing with them, insisting that the transactions wouldn't work anyway as my bank account only had about £4 in it, and refusing to pay off bloody debts that weren't my fault and that I'd tried my hardest to prevent, they finally restored my Paypal balance to £0.00. I thought that was sorted.

Then a week later I got a letter from the bank, saying that for attempting to transfer $1100 from my measly account, they'd charged me £20 per transfer. As my balance was now -£60, I was violating the terms of my poxy under 18s bank account, and I had until Friday to repay it, or else. I received this letter on Thursday. £60 probably doesn't sound like much to you guys, but to a 17 year old jobless full-time college student who receives no government handouts and just squandered all her savings on a new phone, £60 is a lot of money.

So I did what any normal 17 year old etc. etc. girl would do. I got daddy to sort it. :] He went down to HSBC with about a million email printouts and argued with a smarmy woman for an hour or so.

Now my bank balance doesn't have any nasty - signs before all the big numbers, and I avoid Paypal like the plague. The end.
( Kittenpants, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 7:01, Reply)

I'm a programmer
and just for fun I coded up an autobot which would spam QOTW with banal stories about student debts. Sadly it ran out of control and I couldn't shut it down. Now I've got a bill for £1,000,000 from my ISP for excess bandwidth charges.
(><(((">, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 6:13, Reply)

I'm a student. If I wasn't poor, it would defy the stereotype.
Not that I tell everybody about my banking details, but once I went £300 into my overdraft. I've paid it back since, but every month or so, my bank take a measly amount out of my account (like, 27p or something).

I got a letter saying that as I was now well in the black, they'd stop randomly charging me miniscule amount. Two months later, they randomly took 87p out.

Not wanting to sound overly picky, I went in the bank next time I had some money to put in. I asked about this random 87p going out. They checked it, and realised their mistake.

A few days later, I got a cheque for 87p.

But that's not all. A few days after that, I got a phone call. It turns out that they 87p was the actual last charge for my me going in the red. Oh, alright then. As I hadn't cashed the 87p cheque, I decided not to bother, and the whole thing would sort itself out.

The following day, I got a cheque for minus 87p. Obviously, the smart clerks at the bank realised that a cheque worth 87p would be cancelled out with a cheque worth minus that amount.

Clever.
(__, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 5:47, Reply)

Last year the Student Loans Company buggered up my loan
and I didn't get it til quite late.. but also my accommodation people made royal arsery of their direct debit collection system.
This resulted in me suddenly having £1900 with apparently no outgoings. WOO YAY!

So what do you do in this situation??? Save it, knowing you'll have to pay the fees and live? Stick it in a nice high interest account? Budget it wisely over the coming months?

Or buy a sportscar?

One month later I crunched my shiny very fast top spec Honda CRX into a fence, causing too much damage for me to repair. Two weeks later I was suddenly invoiced £2200 accommodation fees to pay in about 14 days or I would murderulated.

Cock. No longer with sportscar, and definitely no longer with over £2000.

Luckily my granny did a dead a few years before and took the initiative of hiding a quarter of a million in overseas investments. This resulted in my mother being able to lend me £2500 to get me out it.

My current debt stands at:
£12500ish to Student Loan
£6000 to my mother
and £2600 to the bank

Making a fairly impressive total of over £21000 debt for a final year student. I haven't been fully in the black for over 4 years :D
( MCQ Cartoons n' shit: bagowank.com, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 4:49, Reply)

Since I was old...
enough I got a loan to buy a nice new mountain bike (still got it, just don't use it), I then took out a loan with the Halifax for things, then less than a year later I got a loan out for a car and a loan for a £350 head unit from Halfords (which I borrowed more against and ending up owing a grand!), and got a £1,600 overdraft with the bank.

Now, my overdraft is clear (it's amazing how easy that is when you don't pay any rent), my Halifax loan was cleared in October and at the end of January I'm being made redundant so will use that to clear the head unit and car loan.

So, 1st February 2007 I'll be debt free as I have no intention of paying any money back to my landlady !!!
(Laxly, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 1:19, Reply)

i wnat money, thats what i want
Owed the bank £200 quid in bank charges, almost taken to court by a cunt landlord i never met for a house i never even stayed in for £700, overdrawn on my account because you can use cheques without having money in your bank, also owe shitloads in student loans and also emotional debts after a baad breakup, maybe i should just rob a bank, they rob me

Length, girth, go fuck yourself
(ZZ, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 1:16, Reply)

HSBC - No No No No No
Serious story and true,

HSBC graduate loan with PPI (smacks self in head) Topped up loan 5 times over 3 1/2 years. Cash received from loan in total approx 18k, 3 1/2 years later having paid back 15k in payments settlement figure is 19.6k. Go figure? Cue WW3 with bank, yikes!
(Tequilaboy, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 1:06, Reply)

No debts here...
One bastard owes me a wedge though.
Fat fucker owes me £2K. It all started with a £50 loan and then another and another each time coupled with a heartfelt sob story.
That and the fat twat could never play cards to save his life. He never noticed me cheating either. Fat arsehole.

Moral of the story is: Never EVER EVER lend people money.
( P45 Sent by my Bosch 509e in the year 2000, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 1:06, Reply)

Deeper and deeper
A colleague of mine remorgaged the house and added a 20,000 on for an extention that didn't exist, that money was flitted away, they had the remorgage, a 25,000 credit card(s) debt, a cut off phone, cut off cable and a really rubbish mortgage rate.
She still goes out spending on presents almost on a daily basis as she is a Jehovah's witness so buys presents for anything for people other than Christmas and Birthdays (almost like making up for it)
She and husband went bankrupt 7 years ago and waited 3 years for the debt's to clear, looks like they are going to do it again.
600 quid I think it costs to go bankrupt, then wait 3-4 (I think it's 4 years now) and your files are wiped clean.

Makes me bloody sick.
(Opanoid Look sweats dripping off them, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 0:33, Reply)

Ah, yes
Well, it's all settled at about £1750, with overdraft and credit card. Buuuut, Sainsbury's are paying that all off in 'monthly' installments :| Let's not talk about uni fees.

But the real funny story is my mate. The boy signs up for uni to do accounting. 6 months in, realises he's plain sailing [or thinks he is] and takes 3 credit cards, 2 overdrafts and maxes the lot.

So far, so good.

Fails the exams, fails the resits.

Drops out of accounting.

Takes another credit card, and another overdraft to cover repayments. Gets back into uni to do politics. Splurges all the money he gets in his loan, goes from his flat back home for 8-10 months. Mummy and Daddy help him out.

4 months in, drops out of politics.

Mummy and daddy cover him, he applies for the RAF. Doesn't get in.

Takes another credit card to cover repayments of repayments of repayments of repayments [is that one too many?].

Total debt: £30,000+

...whee, i'm only £2000 or so!
(Schumann makes awesome quiches., Fri 24 Nov 2006, 0:07, Reply)

That was clever!
This is timed really well for me.

OK, here is my current financial situation:

Overdraft: £4,600
Credit Card 1: £7,200
Credit Card 2: £5,200
Total Debt Today: £17,000

So as a sensible young man what did I decide to do?

A - Manage this debt properly and stop spending all my income on beer and gadgets

or

B - Buy a new flat that I can't afford to furnish

You can guess can't you?

I pick up the keys tomorrow!

Bill

P.S. in the spirit of option A I'm going out now but will drink beer not expensive cocktails!
(bill, Thu 23 Nov 2006, 23:55, Reply)

Similar to PMGT...
4 years of a masters has left me with the happy £16k of student loan to pay off, plus those amusing little extras they add on for inflation. It's 4 seperate increases a month!

I agree with PMGT with regards to the mates who didn't go to uni. I quote:
"These students don't realise... We've been to the university of life, you and me"
Say two mates... Both dropped out of Art College, and one went on to drop out of Uni after a month. The former is now a plasterer and doing quite well and happy. The other is one step up from me on the dossing ladder.

However, as I pointed out to them - I think that in the end I'll put back in a fuck site more than you will.
And it isn't dodging - It's a twatting LOAN.

Guess who left University just as they introduced top up fees :)
Guess who might be about to get on a course where fees and accomodation is paid for you :)
(tweebianmonkey Should be known as Widget, Thu 23 Nov 2006, 23:53, Reply)