I tend to find its disproportionately easy to find bad news than good news on various forums around the internet, so I figured I'd make some time to share some good news and some appreciation to help balance it out a bit, and to hopefully help somebody else who ended up in a similar situation.

In short, I'd like to thank this forum, for existing (I was surprised how few there are), all the various posters for sharing their stories and experience (good and bad, it all helps), and David Tannock from Wylie & Bisset, for doing all the hard work in getting me to where I am now. Today I got the first confirmation that my Trust Deed is now 'Protected'. I still have a way to go till I get to the end of all this, but I have now started, I now have a solid plan, and now it's simply a matter of time, which leaves me able to be optimistic about my financial future for the first timelikeever.

For some brief background. I've been in constant employment since I left school, my debt started building around 15 years ago then slowly and surely grew. Some unfortunate choices, a bad property purchase, low wages, and a credit-happy ex along the way it had got to the point where I had around 25k of unsecured debt alongside at least 5k of negative equity in a property that I didn't even live in (long storybad neighbourhood).

I found myself in the situation where my monthly repayments just to creditors were upwards of £900. Having to pay rent on top of that, alongside travel/food/etc was just unsustainable. I'd already cut back on everything and anything optional, and had somehow never missed a payment, but it wasn't right that I was working so hard (average 50+ hours a week) to basically exist in the same situation that I'd be in with a council house and on brew/jobseekers, there was no realistic possibility of me ever paying off the debt in my lifetime, and over the 15 years I'd been paying interest for I'd most likely already paid back more than I borrowed.

After searching around the internet, reading various FAQs, I felt I was left with three choices; A) Call round each and every one of the 7 different creditors and attempt to negotiate something myself (but I didn't have 60 hours a week spare, and it would probably never achieve much). B) Bankruptcy (I figured that was always a sensible 'plan B'). C) A Trust Deed..

I did my research, thankfully found this forum, then after reading various forum threads, and some of the experts replies I decided to try to contact David Tannock for somewhere to start. I've seen and heard more than my fair share of sales pitches, or one sided 'presentations', I'm a sceptical person when it comes to believing what people try to tell/sell me, and with this being my first attempt at doing anything sensible about my debt (other than just endlessly paying minimum/interest payments) I didn't really expect to achieve anything. Surprisingly though (and importantly for me) David was happy to give me the time to explain my situation from my side, and to explain my thoughts. After he had explained what I'd got right, and wrong, I arranged to gather what information I had about my creditors and visit his office a few days later to start the process.

A week or two, and two wholly painless and refreshingly relaxed meetings later David had done the maths, worked out the creditors details, generated the paperwork and I had it all signed. The deal is for me to pay £300 a month for 4 years and then I'm debt free. Between these payments and my previous payments the creditors still make a profit and I actually get out of this mess.

The most overriding thought that I have had since I started sorting this out was that I never realised how much of a burden the debt had on my ability to relax and enjoy myself, I thought it was just 'some numbers', but it was always in the back of my mind making me feel guilty for any spending (even on food), and now it's not, if I had knew how much better I would have felt, I would have done this years ago (and be debt-free by now). I also never realised how straightforward it would all be, just gather some paperwork/details, then go along and let a professional sort out the mess. When my car is broken I take it to a mechanic to fix it, so it makes perfect sense that when my finances are 'broken' I look to an expert to fix them. It's not like dealing with bank/council/utility 'customer services' departments where the staff get paid regardless of how much help they offer and all-too-often would prefer to just get you off the phone. With my trust deed it was also in David's interests to get the situation resolved as that's his business and he doesn't make any money for wasting peoples time, it was a situation of me being 'helped' as opposed to someone reluctantly agreeing to things because they were supposed to.

David answered any messages/emails I sent almost immediately, returned all calls, and kept me up to date on the progress without needing reminded/prompted at any point, and was always approachable and reassuring. In context to the complexity of the task (7 different creditors!), this was relatively the most straightforward thing I've ever arranged. To anyone considering investigating this route, if you aren't realistically going to spend 20+ years paying it off, then a trust deed does indeed (ha!) seem to be the perfect place to start. I didn't speak to any of the other experts on this site, but I certainly have no complaints at all after dealing with David, and would recommend him to anyone.

I'm gonna treat myself to a guilt-free curry later. Cheers!

If anyone has any questions, just ask. I'll try to keep an eye on the thread, although I'm super-busy at work so there might be a bit of a delay.