Toby Ingham In the Chair: Put away the credit card and face harsh reality

Nov 13 2008 By Toby Ingham

A 56 year old teacher I'll call Paul, has a strong sense of de vu about the current downturn in the economy. Paul was made redundant from the city in the 1987 crash. He says his redundancy came as a real shock to him. "One minute I was just flying, trading, there was loads of money about, and then all of a sudden - nothing. All the news now about the banks really brings it back to me".

For Paul the real problems came later. "It was my own fault because I started to ignore the letters I was getting about unpaid credit card bills and council tax, and I slipped behind with my mortgage payments. I was completely unprepared to lose my job and I went into a state of denial. I got a redundancy pay out but I used it badly."

In the end Paul was confronted by a letter from the bailiff. "At first I just couldnÕt believe it, but actually it woke me up. I went to see the council and they were very helpful about arranging for me to repay my debt in instalments. In a way, that marked the beginning of my recovery, when I started to face up to my situation".

If money is a problem the most helpful thing you can do is to try to get a realistic sense of your situation. Commonly people tend to ignore the problems and turn a blind eye to them, but that just makes matters worse.

Although it can feel very difficult confronting something you'd prefer to ignore, in the longer term having a realistic grasp of the facts helps.

Paul says "I was surprised just how much talking about my problems calmed me down. They"d become this big taboo - as soon as the brown envelopes dropped on the mat I would put them straight in the bin - my wife never even saw them. When I started to face up to things it became easier. It was the beginning of me retraining as an economics teacher; I thought IÕd see if I could help other people find out a bit more about their money problems. No doubt about it, facing up to the situation is the best thing you can do."

You can cotack Toby via www.counsellingbuckinghamshire.co.uk or calling 01494 671 121.