There are few more frightening things in life than debts that are out of control, and fewer still that leave you feeling so hopeless.

Here are a few bits of independent advice about debts.

The first sounds obvious, “You Are Expected to Pay”. On the face of it, it sounds obvious, but it has implications for you and to whom you owe the money.
Often the letters, threats and court actions are based on a desire to gain payment and will keep coming and get more insistent if you ignore them.
If you have lost control, or lost your job, the first thing to do is talk to the people who have given you the loan, or credit. If they know your situation at the earliest chance, you should find they are more prepared to come to a new agreement, rather than later when courts or collection agents are involved.
It is this expectation of payment that gives both sides the willingness to agree. If you choose to let it go, all the people at the other end know is what they see, and that is your lack of continuation to uphold your part of the agreement. They will not know why and are unlikely to be sympathetic towards you when they find out at the last minute.

Even the most forceful collector for a lender has only one goal and that is to get what is owed. As such they are motivated by this goal, if you can help them understand that you are not going to default on the agreements then there is a way forward. Often the first course of action may seem a harsh one for them to take. The companies often stop giving more credit until the current situation has been resolved. It can bite hard to suddenly loose what appears to be a lifeline, but it does not make the situation worse. Invariably that simple thing can save you a lot of grief, losing the use of a credit card, while hard to compensate for, will in the long term reduce the amount of crisis and trouble you may face and bring the whole situation under control more quickly. It will force change in your spending habits and may prove a hardship at the onset, but I have seen firsthand what happens to people who try and cover one debt by taking out loans from other agencies or lenders. The end results are far worse and more costly than the initial debt ever was.

Councils and the Tax bodies of this country are no different; they need to collect what is due but are willing to help when and where they are allowed by the laws that govern them.

Remember that there are laws that govern the actions of those you owe as much as they govern you. Get as much information as you can from the people you owe, read you agreements and contracts and find any information you can about benefits and aid that the local or national government can offer you in your circumstances.

The second piece of advice is to seek help from professionals. There are government agencies and other bodies who give good, honest and workable solutions to debt management and are there to help. They have no axe to grind and are not biased towards you or your lenders. They will speak plainly, and often this may come as a surprise or even sound harsh, but remember it does help in the long run. Also remember that the solution one person suggests is not always the only solution to your situation. Ask around, find other people who have been helped or who offer advice. The more you know the better your chances of finding the solution that is right for you.

The last piece of advice is to learn how to budget. It sounds condescending but is not meant to be. Even if the situation was out of your control or forced on you by the loss of your job through redundancy learning how to budget will help, not just now, but in the future as well.
It is often the case that we overlook what we spend on, simply because it is habit. We always by brand X washing powder for example. Or always go to the same place for lunch every day.
When I talk about budgeting I do not just mean the large scale items forced on us by the rising cost of a mortgage or fuel prices, but the overlooked and forgotten items that make up more of our outgoings than you might expect. A friend of mine challenged me on this one time, so I sat with him and we looked at what he earned and what he spent. It took us about an hour to find that his outgoings on mortgage, gas, electricity, food and clothing etc. accounted for about 55% of his annual income. What he did not realise was that the majority of the balance he spent on things he did not notice he wanted or needed. He bought magazines and snacks and gadgets almost without noticing, and never really put them to use. The snacks were a spur of the moment thing, often brought home and left in a cupboard for later, often until they went out of date. The magazines piled up in a corner and were no more than glanced through and the gadgets, while used a few times when new, often did not get used at all after that, yet he still bought others that did nearly the same things over and over again.

Budgeting is not about doing away with things that you need but focusing on the things you really don’t need. I do not mean that you should not go out and enjoy yourself or do something you find real pleasure in but see the places where you are spending your money and make choices that are right for you.
Often the exercise in listing where the money goes is enough and other times it gives you a chance to decide what to do and when. It can be hard to do, and can sometimes lead to disagreement or accusations. Try and avoid this as best you can as it is not a blame exercise but IS more the foundation of your way out of the situation in which you find yourself. It provides you with accurate information and enables you to see what you can afford to pay and to whom. This then provides the basis of settlements, or agreements with those that you owe.