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That’s even better than gold right? After a few months I had a leaflet through the door for a platinum card. A mini triumph, I got accepted, and with another 9 months 0% I would be able to shift the balance on my previous card when the 0% on that one ran out. I was surely doing alright for myself now?

To sum up, in less than 9 months, I’d been granted £6500 of borrowing across two credit cards.

Life has bumps in the carpet.

My parents split up and then my girlfriend left me. At this point I knew my spending was slightly out of control, I didn’t ever think about what I was spending, I’d eat out all the time, I’d buy what I wanted immediately when I wanted it. Whilst I concentrated on other areas of my life that were starting to unravel slightly, it was easy to turn a blind eye to my spending. Before too long, I had maxed out one credit card and had about £2000 on the other. So, with one card maxed out nearing the end of the 0% deal, not enough available credit on the other and no immediate way of clearing my balance there was only one logical solution. Another credit card!

Please keep reading at this point, this is a historical account. The real solution is NEVER another credit card!

More credit.

Sure enough, I was given a Gold card with £5500 limit on it! This meant I had a total borrowing capacity of £12,000, and it had only taken three small decisions. I moved the majority of the balance of the first card to my platinum card and put the remainder on my new gold card.

A few months later, I cleared the remaining balance of my first card and cut it up. Looking back at it, this was actually a red-herring and represented the false impression I had created for myself which said “I’m in control of my spending and I’m sensible enough to have this level of borrowing.”

Total outstanding at this point about £4,000 - available credit £5,000.

What follows is a brief time-line of how I got to my situation today and, perhaps more importantly, my thinking and logic at the time.

All the figures are approximate. I apologise for this because one of the important things I’ve learnt is to be exact, but this is historical, and after all, if I’d written it down I wouldn’t be in this mess!

And so it begins:

At the end of 2001, whilst in a well paid job, I saved £4200 to buy a new car. Not quite being able to afford the one I wanted, rather than continue saving, I got my first credit card and put the remaining £2300 on it. Much like today, it was at a time when there were plenty of of 0% offers around. So I thought, “Well, if I save the money before the 0% offer runs out, I’ve not lost anything right? I even get £30 of a popular store’s point!”… the start of a very slippery slope, the first time I justified my spending actions to myself in a way that made it seem acceptable.

I enjoyed the buzz of driving around in a nice new car and, to my surprise, I quite enjoyed appearing well off to my friends. It makes me feel ashamed when I say it, but it’s the frightening reality of who I was at the time, “I quite enjoyed appearing well off to my friends”. That sounds horrible doesn’t it? I was getting pleasure from thinking that other people might want what I had. I now had my formula for racking up debt:

New toy + Appearance of doing well + Low cost borrowing = Green light to spend!

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.

I turn 27 next week, and I owe £42,228.43

Let me just visualise that…

£42,228.43

That doesn’t quite do it really does it? Let’s visualise it in a way that I can understand a bit better, let’s give it wheels!

That’s right, at the time of writing, the amount of my debt could buy me a 2002 reg Porsche 911. So what have I actually got parked on the drive? A J reg Kia Pride!

I’d urge anyone at this point in debt just to do a similar thing, pick something that you covet after that matches your debt and visualise it in your head…or like I did, search auto trader! Hmm… I wonder if I could get a date with Angelina Jolie for £42,228.43!? Sorry, I digress.

So why am I writing this blog?

Three reasons:

1. The very act of writing this is helpful to me. Am I a writer? No, definitely not. As with anything you’re not that great at, it takes time, practice and thought. I’m having to think about how I want to structure things, what I’m going to say and how I actually write, and the entire time I’m doing this, I’m thinking about my debt; all £42,228.43 of it.
2. If I get a single click on an ad, I’ve lowered my debt. So, if you’ve clicked, I thank you very much.
3. If I can prevent a single person from getting in to the same situation, or help a single person with an existing debt, I’ll be very happy indeed.