Personal Debt and Personal Crises

When life deals you a difficult hand, debt can often be on the cards

The financial crisis has hit many people in the pocket. With incomes being squeezed, day to day costs rising faster than pay and disposable incomes shrinking. There’s been a stark increase in individuals seeking personal debt solutions.

Even those who’re responsible with their finances can only do so much in the face of a shrinking fiscal buffer and find themselves ‘just about managing’ – leading to them being dubbed ‘JAMs’. These are households on low to middle incomes, who have responsibilities they can just about cope with, but for whom even a minor change in circumstances could trigger a descent into debt.

Debt, Divorce and Redundancy

When a personal crisis hits, debt often follows and debt charity StepChange has revealed that  while individuals under 25 years old still tend to experience debt problems primarily as a result of their poor budgeting, for other age groups, redundancy and divorce are more likely to create the  ‘income shock’ which causes them debt problems.

Both divorce and redundancy can affect household income in a similar way. In either circumstance, a household accustomed to having two incomes contributing towards its upkeep, suddenly finds one of those incomes disappearing. In addition to the emotional trauma associated with those ‘life events’ the consequent financial trauma makes it a doubly difficult to deal with and unsurprisingly many people go from just about managing to not managing at all.

Personal Insolvencies continue to rise

If you’re experiencing issues with problem debt and feel like you’re on your own, you couldn’t be more wrong. Personal insolvencies have been on the rise for the last couple of years, so there are more people in the same situation as you than you may realise.

No matter what your circumstances, they can be improved with the right help and the faster you seek that help, the easier the solution will be and the more options you’ll have available.

At Lines Henry, we’re accustomed to helping people dealing with problem debt, so we know how stressful it can be worrying about money related issues alongside the other personal challenges with which you’re faced.

We offer a free consultation to start insolvent individuals on the path to regaining control of their finances and invite you to get in touch. The sooner you do, the sooner we can help.