Composites, not clients
Three desks, three piles of post. None of these people wrote to us.
We use sketches so a route can be seen in a life, not in a glossary. Names, streets and balances are invented. If a detail resembles you, that is coincidence, not a file we hold. Nothing here is the advice those sketches would receive.
Sketch one · Bath
Nia, renting, two cards and a council tax reminder
Nia works part time in a cafe and tops up hours at a weekend market. Rent is paid by standing order and has not slipped. Council tax is two months behind after a broken washing machine was paid for on a credit card. A store card and a mainstream credit card carry the rest. An overdraft is used to the limit by the 20th of every month.
The loudest letter is from the store card, because the language is sharper. The more serious letter is from the council, because a liability order can lead to enforcement agents. In the order this desk would want Nia to think, the council arrangement comes before any extra penny on the store card. The washing machine debt is real, and it is still non-priority next to council tax.
If a calm budget shows a small surplus, Nia might later choose avalanche, because the store card’s rate is the painful one, while minimums stay on the other card. If the surplus is not there, a free adviser would look at whether a DMP or, if the tests were met, a DRO is even in the room. Nia does not discover that by guessing the £75 surplus rule against a tired Thursday. She discovers it by sitting with someone who is allowed to apply the test.
Sketch two · Somerset
Owen and Priya, one income and a car on finance
Their second child arrived in the spring. Priya’s statutory pay has ended and she is not yet back at work. Owen’s wage covers the mortgage, just. A PCP agreement on a five-year-old car is the commute. Two credit cards, opened for the nursery deposit and a pram, are on minimums. They have been offered a “consolidation remortgage” by a comparison site.
The car is not a vanity. If the finance is terminated badly, the commute may disappear, and so may the wage that pays the mortgage. That pushes the car finance toward the priority side of the sheet for as long as the car is the only way to work, while they also ask whether a cheaper way of travelling exists. The remortgage offer would stick unsecured card debt to the house. It might lower the monthly figure and raise the amount they would still owe in fifteen years. It is a question for a regulated mortgage adviser, not for a banner, and only after a budget that includes childcare they will actually need.
A Breathing Space is not automatically the right pause for a couple who are keeping the mortgage but frightened. It might be, if enforcement on the cards is close and they need weeks to finish a proper budget. It is started by a debt adviser, and ongoing mortgage payments still have to be made. Their first useful hour is the budget, together, with both names on the joint debts written down honestly.
Sketch three · self-employed
Harun, a joiner with tax arrears and a business overdraft
Harun is a sole trader. Materials went on the business overdraft during a quiet winter. He also underpaid tax on account and now has a letter from HMRC. A personal credit card, used for a family holiday two summers ago, is in arrears. A social media advert has told him an IVA will “deal with HMRC and the card together”.
Tax is not a card. HMRC is a priority creditor with its own powers, and a household DMP that politely ignores the tax letter is a bad DMP. Business debts and personal debts can tangle when one human being owes both, which is why Business Debtline exists, on 0800 197 6026, for sole traders in England, Wales and Scotland. An IVA might one day be discussed. It is not the first sentence, and it is not something to start because an advert used the word tax.
Harun’s useful first page is a split list: tools and materials the business must buy to invoice again, tax and any VAT, the personal card, and household rent. Cash that keeps the work coming is not the same as cash that flatters a creditor. An adviser who understands self-employment will say this more precisely than we can, with his actual returns on the table.
What the three sketches share
Each of them is tempted by the noisiest letter or the smoothest advert. Each of them has at least one debt whose consequence is heavier than embarrassment. None of them is helped by a blog that pretends to choose. The shared preparation is the same packing list we set out on the budget page: statements, the tenancy or mortgage, council tax, court dates, and a surplus that has not been invented by deleting food.
If you recognise the shape of your month in one of these sketches, treat that as a prompt to book free advice, not as a diagnosis. MoneyHelper’s locator, StepChange, National Debtline, Citizens Advice and, for business debts, Business Debtline are the doors. Our contact page is for corrections and editorial questions. Please do not send account numbers to [email protected]. We do not want them, and email is a poor safe for them.
