I was the king of debt.
When I was a student (in the days before massive student loans) I had two jobs earning me over 150 quid a week (big money in the student days). And coupled with the grant money I felt like a king, and unfortunately lived like one.

I'd never use public transport but took taxis everywhere. I maxed out 2 credit cards by using them in my local pub. I used to write cheques to friends for amounts of money under my cheque guarantee card to ensure they were honoured, despite being completely over my overdraft limit. I went out drinking every night and ended up having so many meetings with my bank manager that I felt like they were a friend. The pub I worked in even let me put post-dated cheques in the till so that they'd go through with out questions asked.
It all came to a head when my switch card was taken away from me in Asda one afternoon. I'd tried running the card in my local pub 3 times that afternoon but it had been declined so I headed of to asda to get something to eat and ponder, I presumed it was a faulty card reader in the pub. The bank had charged me 50 quid for every time the card had been used over my limit. So that threw an extra 500 quid onto my overdraft and my account was locked up. I had a very angry sounding head honcho from the bank on the phone and was told that they were going to take me to court. I used the only trick at my disposal, I claimed alcoholism and depression. Horrible I know, but I practically was alcoholic so it wasn't to far off the mark. Managed to sort out the probs with the bank but have always been in debt since. Constantly maxed out credit cards and always at the overdraft limit at the end of the month.

Until I met the missus anyway. Now we've both got 5 grand + in the bank, own both our cars, have no credit cards, and will have the mortgage paid off in 9 years. And I'm only 27, god knows how it's happened but it has. So there's hope for us all kids. If I can do it, god knows everyone else can!


OH! And! It's my 4th B3ta birthday in 2 days!
( Evil Bastardo, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 13:20, Reply)