I’m not a financial guru

Who am I to preach to you?

This is the problem when you write something about which you know fairly little!

I’m not a financial guru, I’m not academically brilliant and I haven’t even managed to get rid of my debt yet! In fact, at the time of writing, I’ve only just really got started dealing with it.

In keeping with point 1 above, this is just a factual account of my experience, how I acknowledged my problem, how I managed to get in to this pickle in the first place and how I’m dealing with it. It’s up to you to gleam any useful points you can from my experiences.

You are presumably reading this because you are in a similar situation to me or perhaps someone has suggested you read it to prevent you getting in to the same situation. Either way, I’m going to try and assume you’re not stupid. I’m not stupid, but still I managed to end up here!
About me, how did I get to this point?

It might come as a surprise when you hear that I’m a fairly normal guy. I don’t drink excessively, I don’t have a gambling problem and I don’t have an expensive drug habit!

I had a good childhood with a supportive family, I have a well paid job, plenty of good friends and I’ve never suffered from any sort of depression. It’s safe to say, I’m generally very happy and always have been. So how did I end up here then?

“Easy.”

That one word sums up both how I could get here and also why I got here. It was both easy to get the credit I needed to get here and it was easy to ignore what I owed which is why I got here.

I can safely say that on my journey to digging my hole I’ve never seen a penny of the money I’ve spent. It’s all been invisible money. If I’d had to break in to a house, steal an old ladies hand bag, or choke a puppy to death to get the dosh I’d have known something was wrong – but no, it meant nothing. It wasn’t real.

I don’t like to blame other people for the situation I find myself in, it’s my own doing, and as difficult as it’s been for me to accept… I am an adult! All of that aside, I think it’s frightening how easy it has been for me to borrow money and I do believe it’s about time something changed in the credit industry. I’ll save this for later though (see Time for change) but in the mean-time it’s time to help myself.