(no subject)
OK, so the markets crashed pretty badly yesterday in the wake of the Lehman Brothers failure.
And at the CAB, I did my first interview with a client who had debt problems. Only he didn't. In this particular case the client had previously held a well paying job (£70k or so), and then been made redundant. He was looking for work, and had used his saving to pay off his credit cards (it is generally a bad idea to treat credit card debt as a priority when your house is also on the line, but that was a done deal) so the only outstanding big debts he had were the mortgage.
Unfortunately, that mortgage cost more than his actual monthly income at the moment. And all he wanted was to keep the house. I went through the budget form and plugged in the numbers, but there's nothing much to be done when you are spending more than you are earning (other than cut down your spending and/or increase your earning). We told him to go negotiate with the mortgage lenders as a priority, but the only way to keep that house in the longterm would be to find a way to get an extra £2k per month.
Its very unusual for us to see a debt client who doesn't actually have any debt arrears. Its also unusual for us to see someone who has been used to that level of earnings. I found this a hard interview because it was so obvious that these people have been conscientiously living within their means (just their means were higher than I was used to) ... and then suddenly the situation changed.
I came home and read the news about the markets. And maybe it felt just a bit more personal...
And at the CAB, I did my first interview with a client who had debt problems. Only he didn't. In this particular case the client had previously held a well paying job (£70k or so), and then been made redundant. He was looking for work, and had used his saving to pay off his credit cards (it is generally a bad idea to treat credit card debt as a priority when your house is also on the line, but that was a done deal) so the only outstanding big debts he had were the mortgage.
Unfortunately, that mortgage cost more than his actual monthly income at the moment. And all he wanted was to keep the house. I went through the budget form and plugged in the numbers, but there's nothing much to be done when you are spending more than you are earning (other than cut down your spending and/or increase your earning). We told him to go negotiate with the mortgage lenders as a priority, but the only way to keep that house in the longterm would be to find a way to get an extra £2k per month.
Its very unusual for us to see a debt client who doesn't actually have any debt arrears. Its also unusual for us to see someone who has been used to that level of earnings. I found this a hard interview because it was so obvious that these people have been conscientiously living within their means (just their means were higher than I was used to) ... and then suddenly the situation changed.
I came home and read the news about the markets. And maybe it felt just a bit more personal...