I agree with everything you said tinsoldier. Its not easy to stop and tell yourself that your debt is out of control and therefore maybe the lenders need to do this for you. I don't think that I had spent even half of what my limits would allow and I did't actually realise that I had a problem until they were cut. All of a sudden I couldn't move balances about and when the 0% rates ran out, Bang! I couldn't manage any more. Even at this point though I still managed to get another card with £1800 limit on it. This saved a few pounds on interest payments but wasn't a long term solution. When I spoke to my bank about my problem they tried to sell me home insurance before telling me that they wanted to look at reducing my overdraft. The interest rate on their loan proposal was nearly 20%. I might be skint but I'm not daft. In the end its their own fault. The weird thing is, they would rather accept 15p in the pound as a dividend rather than help you out when you asked.

I think that the banks and credit card providers are well aware that their lending policies have at times been very poor. Some of them have commercially paid a very high price for this.

A few years ago I worked with a couple who had accumulated in excess of £300,000 on nearly 60 different credit cards. There was very little to show for it; as so often is the case the majority of the debt had arisen from servicing the spiralling cost of other debt.

The thing that struck me was just how little checking the issuers of all of these credit cards must have done into the capacity of their clients to repay what they were offering to lend.

Should my clients have stopped borrowing and taken advice earlier? Yes. Should they ever have been allowed by the lenders to get to the point that they had reached? No.

I'm not sure this situation could repeat itself now though. Lenders now seem to be looking at people's existing commitments much more when making lending decisions; previously many were simply preoccupied with whether people had paid on time in the past without stopping to think how those payments had been funded.

I remember 2 of the 5 credit card providers I had threw money at me. One card had a £25000 limit on it and the other was £15000. The other 3 each had limits of between 5 and 10k. Coupled with my utter fear of speaking to bank managers, all I was doing was shuffling money from one to the other. I ended up with over £60000 of debt and nothing to show for it. It seemed so easy for them to keep giving another limit increase. When I got all my limits halved, I wanted to die. I can remember feeling like I was going to collapse. I don't know how much I can blame providers for my position but it was irresponsible to keep upping limits every few months. I still feel sick everytime I log in to my bank account. I know I can't overdraw and I know there's money there to cover everything I have coming off but there's still a feeling of dread and fear for anything financial. I start feeling sick when I'm standing at a checkout and the card thing takes a little longer than usual.
So here we are, 30 months down the line. Knackered credit rating and nothing to show for it. At least I know from next year, I can start the process of showing I've learned from this experience. I've also turned into an incredible tightwad. Supposed to be going to a night out tomorrow and have said I'll just pop along after the meal - can't justify spending £25 on it. A few yeas ago, I'd have written a credit card cheque for a couple of hundred, paid it into my account, bought clothes and shoes and went out. Seems so long ago.

It's a harsh lesson Gillian but soon you can start afresh. When you've finished paying your TD, if you continue to live thriftily just think how much money you'll be able to save for things that will make a difference to your life, not just shoes clothes and meals out. You will appreciate things so much more and that's the way to be happy. Jasmine Birtles, the Money Magpie, has an excellent blog on her website called "it's better to be rich than look rich" - google it and you won't be disappointed. I hope your new life turns out just perfect xxx

Aw, you're so sweet Uncleben. I'm counting the weeks till I can cancel my direct debit. I'm so thrifty now it's not even funny. I couldn't even bear to part with money for eyeliner (£6) because that would allow me to have a take away on the way home. I reckon I'll have an extra £50 to myself and start paying husbands debts. Once that's done, I'll be starting to save. Even though I'm skint, I'm happy that I can pick up the mail and there aren't any letters telling me how much I owe.