I had around that mark of debt at the start of my TD and am 1 payment away from completion so there is hope! The whole point of a TD is that your surplus cash goes towards it so you should still be able to live a normal life.

You need to sit down with an expert and go through it all. The first step is always the hardest!

Hi Islander23

Welcome to the forum first of all. I think the figure of £80k alone would be difficult to manage as you say and the payments may just be servicing the ongoing interest.

Most options, including the Trust Deed will look at your finances and work out a plan with a specific time period for repayment. This will probably allow for a large debt write off and freeze interest and charges.

The best idea is to sit down with an advisor as mentioned by upstream and see what option best suits. Meetings are informal and will allow you to ask questions before going away and deciding what to do next.

Mark

Welcome to the forum Islander23

Of course you are worried - it's only natural. But you have taken the first, and hardest, step already now in seeking some advice and help. I am sure that you will find that every little step you take forward from now gets easier.

As the others have said, the next step is to take a deep breath, get in touch with an expert and go through your situation in more detail. As long as you get good advice and cover all eventualities up front then you can start to look forward and take control of the situation.

There is also a lot of support on this site from others who have been in exactly the same position as you in the past and come through to the other side, so I'm sure you will be able to take a lot of strength from them.

Welcome Islander23,

I had more than you built up over 18+yrs, never realised how much it was until one day at work I roughly added up my many, many, many different accounts! Spent another year or so keeping my fingers crossed for a lottery win, thought I was beyond help.

Went and got help and TD was best thing ever to happen to me wish I had done it years before. Its hard to take those first initial steps but getting help is the best thing you can do (in my honest opinion).

My experience of a TD was 100% positive.

Whatever you do I wish you all the best and good luck.

Cheers

Hi Islander23,

As others have said the positive thing to try and remember is you have solutions available to help you deal with the debts that you have.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is something that I hear all the time. It's the first thing that people will do to try and get by and eventually with credit limits at their maximum it's only then that someone starts to look for advice.

It's always encouraging and helpful I think to read posts like the one Hamish has made. Most people don't realise that this type of help and debt relief is available.

Try and take some time to sit down, work out a thorough income and expenditure, look at who you owe money to, how much you owe them and then take it from there. A good advisor will work through all this with you so don't worry too much if you are not too sure where to start.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.