DebtDrive

It’s fine talking about budgeting and planning, but what if you’re really struggling to meet essential payments? What if you’re in debt now, or if you need some money urgently?

Before you do something, you might regret, let us give you some information on what your options are. It’s not just you – the average UK household debt was £60,720 in November 2020

Debt and loans can be good. Yes, you heard right, taking out a credit card or loan can be good. Often you can benefit from interest free periods or low interest rates. In the UK we have had until very recently a very low interest rate and borrowing to spread costs and pay back each month can be cheap money. The problem occurs when you keep borrowing or your income stops or reduces.

Having a good credit score is really important so read on to find out more. Before you sign up for a credit card or expensive store card, it makes sense to think about whether you really need to borrow money.

DebtDrive is not only about getting out of debt but also about how to learn how to borrow wisely.

Click on a heading below and see a summary, and if you're interested you can GO and read more about it!

Here are some facts and stats  about debt. GO!

It’s not only individuals and households who get into debt, countries do too. Find out more about world debt.  GO!

UK households accrue debt for a number of reasons.  See how much UK households owe and on what. GO!

See what you can do to avoid getting too far into debt. GO!

Not all debt is bad – sometimes a loan can help your financial position.  GO!

This could be the key section – what can you do when things get tough and you find yourself in debt.  GO!

See how important your credit score is to you and how you can improve it.  GO!

When it all gets too much there’s always the option to declare yourself bankrupt. See what that means.  GO!

If you’re a visitor to our site you can join and download information, assess your own health and create your own action plans, and even contribute to our site.  GO!

We have a video and a testimonial.  GO!

See some ideas on next steps you can take. GO!

We have some additional information on this subject. GO!

Facts About Debt

average total debt
£ 500

per UK household in November 2020

Financial vulnerability
11%

Rise in UK financial vulnerability during the pandemic as far as Q1 2021. This was
driven by higher use of credit, increased dependence on benefits and increased use of alternative financial products. Lowell Vulnerability Index Oct 2021

UK people
8.9 million

who by Dec 2020 had borrowed more because of Coronavirus

Buy Now Pay Later
Users 40%

Proportion of users of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) who are struggling to pay their bills (Citizens Advice). Citizens Advice has found that many shoppers do not view BNPL as “proper borrowing”

total unsecured debt
£ 1

per UK adult in November 2020

Secured debt
Mortgages 88.7%

Secured debt (mortgages) comprise 88.7% of total personal debt at the end of November 2021. Money Charity This is 108.6% of average earnings!

household debt
£ 20 trillion

of all types in 2020

Credit card debt
StepChange Clients 66%

StepChange Debt Charity reports that 66% of 13,000 new clients who received full debt advice in November 2021
had credit card debt  . The most common reasons for seeking debt advice were “lack of control over finances”,
reduced income or benefits, unemployment or redundancy and an injury or health issue. 

world debt infographic

World Debt

You are not alone, people groups, governments and countries often get it wrong and go way over their heads in debt and then spend years trying to get out of debt. The key is to take charge!

Here we show some facts and figures you might find interesting about debts around the world.

According to Wikipedia. "In economics, the debt-to-GDP ratio is the ratio between a country's government debt (measured in units of currency) and its gross domestic product (GDP) (measured in units of currency per year). A low debt-to-GDP ratio indicates an economy that produces and sells goods and services is sufficient to pay back debts without incurring further debt.""

The chart on the right shows that (surprisingly for us) Japan has by far the highest debt-to-GDP ratio at 257%. The UK is shown in the 4th tier at 109%, and the US in the third tier at 133%

unsecured debt chart

UK Household Debt

The chart on the left shows that the Office for Budget Responsibility expect unsecured debt to rise steadily as a share of household disposable income.

The Money Charity says: People in the UK owed £1,754.3 billion at the end of November 2021. This is up by £60.1 billion from £1,689.8 billion at the end of October 2020, an extra £1,136 per UK adult over the year. The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £63,112. The inflation rate was 5.4% in the year to December 2021 and the increase in average first time buyer house prices was 9.1% in the year to November 2021.

See the tabs below for more information.

erasing debt

Avoiding Debt

Debt has the potential to work against your financial health, but not all debt is bad. If you take on debt for a worthwhile purpose, and if you can pay it off and payments are within your budget, debt can strengthen your credit and achieve your goals.

However, debt can also ruin your financial life and cause untold stress if not managed properly. See the information below to see how best to avoid falling into the debt trap.

debt drive

Good loans

Buying a washing machine on interest free credit over 9 months can be a good deal (providing it is genuine) and you’re not over committing yourself.

You take out a debit card that is paid off each month and this gives you 30- or 60-days interest free period which can help with budgeting. You can use a competitive PCP plan rather than take out all your cash savings to buy a car.

So, some credit and loans can be good when used in parallel to your normal budgeting plans. But never over stretch yourself with a large loan over a long period if you think there is a risk you would struggle to make the payments if something went wrong.

When things start to mount up and we start borrowing with high interest rates it becomes a problem. Remember the provider will give you credit but it’s your responsibility to pay it back. They will have also made it clear what the interest rates are and the penalties for non-payment. So, they pass the responsibility onto you.
There is a culture developing now whereby debtors are trying to become the victim and blame the lender for making it so easy. It does not really matter who is to blame once you get into debt – only you can sort it out.

There are some excellent loan and credit card schemes out there if you have a good credit score. You can improve your credit score see what MAS say or see Experian info and for Bankrate info.

ostrich burying head in sand

When things get tough - how to get out of debt

Don’t bury your head in the sand. If you owe money and are struggling to pay it back, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! There are some steps you need to take. First, collect information about all your debts. Check which debts you have to pay and then work out which debts to deal with first (see above).

Then, depending on how severe your situation is, you can restructure your income and expenditure or look at your options for getting out of debt.

See the tabs below for more information.

Priority Debts

Here your landlord could evict you from your home if you don’t pay.

Before your landlord can do this, they’ll need to go to court to get a ‘possession order’ which says when you have to leave. If you don’t leave by the date on the possession order, your landlord can ask the court to set a date for your eviction.

If the loan is secured against your property your bank or building society might evict you and take your home if you don’t pay.

Again before they can evict you, they’ll need to go to court to get a ‘possession order’ – this says when you have to leave. If you don’t leave by the date on the possession order, your bank or building society can ask the court to set a date for your eviction.

If the debt is with your current energy supplier they might cut off your gas or electricity if you don’t pay.

Before they disconnect you, your supplier has to give you a chance to pay your unpaid bills through a payment plan. They also have to give you 7 days’ notice in writing before they cut off your supply.

Your local council might take you to the magistrate’s court if you don’t pay.

If you have the money but choose not to pay when the magistrate’s court tells you to, you could go to prison. You won’t go to prison if you can show you can’t pay.

You could be sent to prison but only if you have the money but choose not to pay – not if you can show you can’t pay.

You might get a court fine if you commit a crime.

This could be income tax, National Insurance, VAT or even overpaid tax credits.

HMRC can:

  • take the money from your wages
  • take the money from your benefits or tax credits
  • use bailiffs to take your property

HMRC will warn you if they’re going to do this but they don’t have to go to court first.

If you have the money but choose not to pay back a tax credits overpayment, HMRC can take you to court. If you don’t go to court when asked or don’t do what the court tells you to, you could be sent to prison.

The Child Maintenance Service can take the money from your wages or bank accounts if you don’t pay.

They’ll warn you if they’re going to do this but they don’t have to go to court first.

If you have the money but choose not to pay, the magistrate’s court can:

  • take away your driving licence or passport for up to 2 years
  • send you to prison (although they won’t  if you can show you can’t pay.

There are some other debts which might be priority debts depending on your circumstances.

If you buy something on hire purchase, you pay for it in instalments and you don’t own it until you finish paying. 

This might be a priority debt because the creditor could take back the goods you bought. If you keep the goods in your home or you’ve paid back more than a third of the cost, the creditor has to go to court to do this.

Hire purchase and conditional sale payments are only priority debts if the goods you bought are really important. For example they might be really important if you need them to:

  • get around – such as a car if there’s no public transport
  • cook food
  • store medicine – such as a fridge

These might be priority debts as your supplier can cut off your phone or internet if you don’t pay.

They’re only priority debts if it’s really important that you can use a phone or the internet. You might, for example, rely on them because you:

  • have a disability or long-term health condition
  • need them for your job
  • are looking for work

If it’s really important for you to use a phone or the internet, tell your supplier when you contact them.

This may be a priority debt because you could be fined by the magistrate’s court if you watch TV without a licence. 

You could be sent to prison if you have the money but choose not to pay a court fine,  but you won’t if you can show you can’t pay.

man holding credit card

Credit Score

What Is a Credit Score? A credit score is a number between 300–850 that depicts a consumer's creditworthiness. The higher the score, the better a borrower looks to potential lenders. A credit score is based on credit history: number of open accounts, total levels of debt, and repayment history, and other factors..

See the info below to find out more.

Bankruptcy

In the old days bankruptcy would last 5 years but today its one year. It must be always a last resort to apply for personal bankruptcy as this affects your credit score, ability to get loans etc.

But if you have little or no asset that can be seized by the courts you could declare yourself bankrupt and wait a year and the debts are wiped.

For visitors

Why don't you join us?

You can register to join us as a member, when you’ll be able to download our stuff and comment, or as a YouDriver when you’ll also be able to check your health and set up your own action plans to make some improvements.  If you’ve already registered, sign in below. Or let us know what you think.

How to pay off your debt

How to off your debt

This video from Finder UK explains different types of debt and how to get out of debt.

“This would be a much better world if more married couples were as deeply in love as they are in debt.”
Earl Wilson
Author, journalist

Next Steps

It doesn’t matter what stage  you’re at – it’s important to be the best you can be.  At the end of the day it’s about taking personal responsibility – You Drive!

It’s really your choice. You can find out more information about the subject, or see other institutions that can help by going to Support. There you will find organisations, training, coaching, self-help courses and other items to support your personal change. We have also started developing a panel of experts to provide info, advice, help and support. 

Get Support

There are times when you need some help to meet your aims –  a helping hand. That might be  an organisation that can provide you with some help,  some specialised information, a particular book or tool to help, or just getting some background reading material.

We have a lot of items which appear on our Drives and other pages, which you can go to by clicking on the picture or link.  Some contain affiliate links and we may receive a tiny commission for purchases made through these links.

If you know of anything which could help you or our other visitors then please click the button on the right, which will take you to a Contacts page where you contact us.

Experts

We are compiling a list of experts who can provide advice, help or specialised services.  You will be able to access these experts from anywhere on our site you see our ‘Experts’ symbol.  Click the green E to see what our Experts list will look like, with a couple of imaginary ‘experts’ added!

More Information

Scroll down to see more information on this Drive. 

If you register you can also download reports, white papers, quizzes and other collaterals.  We will never ask you for any financial information, and we’ll only send you the information you want. You can register for our site either above or in the footer below.  You can provide your own questions and experiences in order to help other members.  We only moderate for spam and inflammatory language – see our moderation policy.

If you’ve found this interesting, then please share it on social media.  Choose your network!

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More information

StepChange are the UK’s leading debt charity – they helped 24,042 people become debt free in 2020.  Go to their website.

If you are thinking of taking out a loan, then check options – this takes you to the Money Advice Service calculator which gives alternatives to Payday loans and also gives overall advice.

Take a test from MoneyHelper to see how you are positioned and how you can get help.

Are you claiming all the benefits you can?  See the Universal Credit Money Manager

Use the National Debtline My Money Steps free online confidential tool

MoneyHelper list of debt advisers

How much will your credit card cost, or how quickly can you pay it off?

The BBC have a Debt test which quickly summarises your position and gives some guidance on what you can do.

Download National Debtline Dealing with Debt PDF

All areas of health are interlinked

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Find your initial focus

You might think that physical, financial and mental health are quite separate, and for some people they are. However, often a problem in one area has a knock-on effect on others. Losing your job can lead to anxiety and depression, which can turn you to drink and impact your health.

You might have a severe issue in one area but that can lead to problems in other areas, and the people treating you for the first problem won’t be equipped to deal with these linked issues.

For example, doctors and nurses can treat you for a physical problem but can’t advise you about your job or finances.  Nor for the anxiety that comes with it, apart from prescribing some drugs, which might or might not be the best solution.

We encourage you to take a holistic view – we look at all areas and offer support across the whole spectrum.

health areas interlinked

Even this view of health is simplistic, as you’ll discover later if you go down that route.  You might want to consider overall health, or wellness or wellbeing, which include additional types of health, such as occupational health (how you are in your job).   Then there’s happiness and quality of life – how do these fit?

If you’re interested in that, click the link here to see more information.

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Health Areas in Domains

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Domains

We break down the overall concept of health or wellness into ‘bite-sized chunks’ that we can actually do something about.  The first level we call health domains. 

We like the Life of Wellness site and we have chosen the following domains.

1. Emotional Wellness: Awareness and acceptance of feelings
2. Spiritual Wellness: A search for meaning and purpose
3. Intellectual Wellness: Recognition of your creativity, knowledge and skills
4. Physical Wellness: Need for physical activity and balanced nutrition
5. Environmental Wellness: Positive awareness and impact on your environment
6. Financial Wellness: Debt reduction, cash flow balance or financial future planning
7. Occupational Wellness: Personal achievement and enrichment from your career
8. Social Wellness: Contribution to your community

Health Areas

Within each domain, we have included a number of health areas. These are specific issues that you can tackle.  Within each health area, e.g. Depression, we have built additional information and exercises which you can do to help in the area. You can create your own Action Plan to address this area, and see

Emotional: Anxiety, Compassion Fatigue, Depression, Gambling, Laughter, Narcissistic, Personality Disorder, Sleep, Stress

Environmental: Environmental Issues, Greenness

Financial: Debt, Family Finance, Financial Planning, Financial Wellness

Intellectual: IQ, Personality, Procrastination

Occupational: Jobs for Different Personality Types, Retirement Income, Work Life Balance

Physical: Alcohol, Disabilities, Dizziness, Drugs, Fitness, Food Preferences, General Health, Healthy Ageing, Illness, Nutrition, Sleep Apnea, Smoking

Social: Communication Skills, Communication Styles, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Love Partnerships, Mental Abuse, Parenting Styles, Sexual Addiction

Spiritual: Are You Sensitive, Mystical Guidance, Spirituality

Each health area has supporting information and its own questionnaire.

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Understand Health

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Physical, financial and mental health

One definition of health is:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. 

The NHS define health as: ‘We use a broad definition of health that encompasses both physical and mental health, as well as wellbeing. This means we are not only interested in whether or not people are ill or have a health condition, but also in how healthy and well they are.’

We believe we also have to consider financial health, as this can easily impact physical and mental health. Click the button to see an example of how these are connected.

 It gets more complicated…

What is Health? How about Wellness, Wellbeing or Happiness?

The Active Wellbeing Society (TAWS) define Health as a state of the overall mental and physical state of a person; the absence of disease. They define Wellbeing or wellness as a way of life that aims to enhance well-being and refers to a more holistic whole-of-life experience which also includes emotional and spiritual aspects of life.  We expand on this definition of health to include financial health and mental health, to make it synonymous with wellbeing or wellness.  

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Health domains

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We break down the overall concept of health or wellness into ‘bite-sized chunks’ that we can actually do something about.  The first level we call health domains.

We like the Life of Wellness site and we have chosen the following domains.

1. Emotional Wellness: Awareness and acceptance of feelings
2. Spiritual Wellness: A search for meaning and purpose
3. Intellectual Wellness: Recognition of your creativity, knowledge and skills
4. Physical Wellness: Need for physical activity and balanced nutrition
5. Environmental Wellness: Positive awareness and impact on your environment
6. Financial Wellness: Debt reduction, cash flow balance or financial future planning
7. Occupational Wellness: Personal achievement and enrichment from your career
8. Social Wellness: Contribution to your community

wellness wheel

Health Areas

Within each domain, we have included a number of health areas. These are specific issues that you can tackle.  Within each health area, e.g. Depression, once you have subscribed we have built additional information and exercises which you can do to help in the area.

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See which domains you should address

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Having established that we use 8 domains, you need to understand which you should concentrate on.

The 8 are:

  • Emotional
  • Environmental
  • Financial
  • Intellectual
  • Occupational
  • Physical
  • Social
  • Spiritual

 

You can take a questionnaire, which scores you in each domain.  You can decide which domains you are strong in, and which you need to improve.

Another analysis shows which domains you should look at, but also which domains you want to look at.

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Locus of Control

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  • We want to help people in all aspects of their health  – physical, financial and mental. We also provide detailed explanations of how overall health (or well-being) is measured.
  • We believe these things are often linked, so we try and address health holistically. We are building templates, questionnaires and exercises to help you identify what’s important to you.
  • We think people should try and take responsibility for  of their own health as much as they can.  See below for what that means.

People look at things differently.  Some people believe things happen to them, while others believe they can influence what happens to them. Technically this is called the ‘locus of control’.  People can have an Internal or external Locus of Control

So how do you see things?

Psychology Today have a 15 minute test which gives you a summary of your position you can buy the detailed results if you want to.

My Personality Test have a 10 minute test which gives you a summary.

People tend to take more responsibility (locus gets more internal) as they get older.  However, external isn’t always bad – for example if you are physically unable to do some things you can accept it and focus on the things you can do.  This American video explains the concept and gives examples of how this can affect relationships.

locus of control

Internal

  • More likely to take responsibility for actions
  • Tend to be less influenced by others

External

  • Blame outside forces for what happens
  • Don’t believe they can change their situation themselves

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Add your attitude to change - see how you view changes in your life

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Do you need to change?

No matter how healthy you are at the moment, the chances are that there are some areas you could improve. It may be that you have a real problem in one or more areas, and you would like to make some improvements.

At YouDrive we accept that there are many different degrees of ‘not wellness’ in a large number of different health areas, ranging from physical illness such as covid-19 through mental illness such as anxiety through to financial problems like debt.  We try and help where the problem ranges from ‘slight’ to quite bad’ – after this expert help and intervention may be needed.

However, especially in these times, we have to try and make these changes ourselves, possibly with some help from others, whether remotely or face to face.

The thing is, to make an improvement we have to change some things.

This involves changing our behaviour in some respects, and that’s not always easy.

Henry Ford, the creator of the assembly line, is quoted as saying “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”.  

henry ford

Another way of looking at this: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” – attributed to Albert Einstein.

Consequently we need to make some changes.  The problem is that we have already developed a lot of habits, some of which we need to break and replace by better ones.  Some of our bad habits have become entrenched, and the bad results they create in turn engender further bad habits to develop – in effect the bad habits can feed on themselves.

We need to understand how we can make changes and stick to them, and that’s what this part of your health profile is about.

It will involve some learning, through reading, some videos and some additional information and also seeing how you react to change currently.

It will also ask you to consider whether you feel you are in charge of your future, or whether you feel it’s all fate.

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Assess your overall health using a health questionnaire

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At YouDrive we try and help people improve their health. We use ‘health’ but we understand there are other terms such as wellbeing or even happiness that reflect how we are doing in our lives – if you’re interested in the different definitions and ideas see our page on the subject.

We want to help whether you have a particular problem – physical, financial or mental – or if you just want to improve some specific part of your life or just make some improvements overall.

You’d be surprised, but there has been a serious amount of scientific work done in this area over the last twenty years.

So first we allow you to assess your current health (or wellbeing, or happiness).  We do this by questionnaire.  Which one is determined by the type of person you are:

  1. You understand yourself well and want a quick overview of your health and wellness, and will drill down in any areas needing work
  2. You want to do a more detailed assessment and then focus on areas you’re already aware of
  3. You want to look at the whole situation in more detail across all the health domains.

By the way, we take your privacy seriously – we collect information that you choose to provide but we de-identify it as much as possible and will never share it with anyone without your explicit consent.

You can then drill down into some specific areas and there are more questionnaires to see your situation in these particular areas.  We provide you with specific information and refer you to other potential aspects of help. Our next step is to build a personalised action plan – for now we will make a suggestion for you to develop your own plan and then after a time you can see whether this has had a positive impact by retaking the test.

In future we will be engaging with medical and behavioural specialists to devise action plans for individual people with specific situations.

We have an overall questionnaire which you can complete which will assess your current state.

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Values, Attitudes and Beliefs

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We all have our beliefs, attitudes and values – these have developed throughout our life based on who we are and what we have done. Let’s look at what these are.

The University of Reading explain: “People’s values, beliefs and attitudes are formed and bonded over time through the influences of family, friends, society and life experiences. So, by the time you’re an adult, you can hold very definite views on just about everything with a sense of “no one is going to change my mind”.

The combination of your personal values, beliefs and attitudes are your moral principles that guide you in life and affect your behaviour. However, your views can wildly differ to others and in an institution such as a school, these beliefs may be counter to the values of the school, child development or indeed the law.” 

Let’s look more closely at the differences between beliefs, attitudes and values.

Beliefs

These come from real experiences – we think our beliefs are based on reality, but in fact our beliefs colour our experiences; also, an original experience e.g. when we were a child is not the same as what’s happening now. Beliefs can be moral, religious or cultural and reflect who we are. They can be rational (‘it gets colder in winter’) or irrational (‘I am never going to make something of myself’).

Attitudes

This is an immediate belief or disposition about something specific. It is a recurring group of beliefs and behaviours aimed at specific groups, people, ideas or objects. They will normally be positive or negative and we will always behave that way to the target group. Examples of attitudes include confidence (I can or can’t do something), grateful (I an entitled to / grateful for XXX) and cheerful (I am generally happy / miserable).

Values

These are things (principles or qualities) that we hold in high regard or consider to be worthwhile or right / wrong. They are formed by a belief related to the worth of something – an idea or behaviour. Some values are common (e.g. family comes first, the value of friendship) or cultural (which the whole community have – see video at Study.com here)

The theory

Links to Wikipedia

Expectancy Value Theory suggests you balance your beliefs about something with the value you attach to it. The Theory of Reasoned Action suggests that beliefs and evaluation about behavioural outcomes determine attitudes, and intentions lead directly to behaviour.

Beliefs

Expressions of confidence – can change over time

Attitudes

Learned predispositions to something – are subject to change

Values

Ideals that guide our behaviour – Generally long lasting and often need life changing experience to change

Iceberg demonstrating implicit and explicit bias – from Owlcation

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A Butterfly Life: 4 Keys to More Happiness, Better Health and Letting Your True Self Shine

Times of change can be a challenge, no doubt! Whether it’s a relationship breakup, job loss, or being diagnosed with a serious health issue. Or you may WANT things to be different, but it feels a little scary or overwhelming. The butterfly reminds us change can be beautiful, even necessary, in order to realize our full potential and live our best life.