Debt
Debt and mental load: getting it out of your head
Not knowing the total is worse than knowing it, and the first useful action is producing a complete list.
People in debt frequently do not know how much they owe in total, and the uncertainty is a substantial part of the burden.
Why the total is unknown
Understandable reasons.
Debt accumulates across products — cards, overdrafts, loans, deferred payment, catalogue accounts, arrears on bills — which are never presented together.
Avoidance means statements go unopened.
Balances change with interest and charges.
And the fear of the number is itself a reason not to calculate it.
Which produces a situation where the imagined figure is generally worse than the actual one, and where no plan is possible because there is nothing to plan against.
Producing the list
The first action.
List every creditor: what is owed, the interest rate, the minimum payment, and whether it is a priority debt.
Include everything: cards, overdrafts, loans, car finance, deferred payment agreements, catalogue accounts, family loans, arrears on rent, mortgage, energy, local taxes and any court fines.
Check your credit files, which reveal anything forgotten and anything you did not know about.
Contact creditors for current balances where statements are missing.
And total it.
Almost everyone reports feeling better after this, even when the number is large, because uncertainty is replaced by a fact that can be worked with.
Sorting it
Into categories that determine action.
Priority debts, where non-payment risks losing your home, energy, liberty or essential goods: rent, mortgage, secured loans, energy, local taxes, court fines, child maintenance and tax debts.
Non-priority debts: cards, overdrafts, personal loans, catalogue debt, deferred payment and family loans.
Which is the sorting that matters most, since pressure comes from whoever contacts you most rather than from whichever debt carries the worst consequences.
Paying a credit card while rent arrears accumulate is a serious and common error.
The income and expenditure statement
The second document.
List income from all sources.
List essential expenditure: housing, utilities, food, transport, insurance, childcare, essential health costs.
The difference is what is available for debt.
Free debt advice services provide standard formats that creditors recognise and accept, which carries considerably more weight than an estimate.
And producing it frequently reveals that the position is more manageable than it felt, or that a formal solution is appropriate — either of which is useful.
What to do with the two documents
Practically.
Contact a free regulated debt advice service and take both to them.
They will identify unclaimed entitlements, which frequently changes the picture materially.
They will explain which solutions apply.
They will negotiate with creditors and, in many cases, take over correspondence entirely — which removes the thing being avoided.
And they will produce a plan with an end date, which is what converts an unbounded situation into a finite one.
Handling the avoidance
Which is the actual obstacle.
Open post on a set day with someone present.
Open it over a bin, so discarding is immediate.
Ask a trusted person to open and summarise it.
Set a short time limit rather than aiming to finish.
Start with the easiest item.
Ask creditors for correspondence in a format you can manage — several will use email or phone instead of letters.
And disclose difficulty to creditors, since regulated firms have obligations towards customers in vulnerable circumstances, which explicitly includes mental health in many jurisdictions.
The end date
Which matters psychologically.
An unbounded debt with no visible end is considerably harder to live with than a larger debt with a defined end date.
Which is why formal solutions, and even informal plans with a calculated end, change how the situation feels as well as how it progresses.
Working out the date — from the balances, the payments and the rates — is worth doing even if the date is years away.
And tracking progress against it visibly sustains the effort.
What not to do
The responses that worsen it.
Ignoring correspondence, particularly from courts.
Borrowing to repay borrowing at higher rates.
Paying whoever shouts loudest.
Paying a fee-charging company for what is available free.
Making arrangements you cannot sustain to end an uncomfortable conversation.
And carrying it alone, since disclosure to one person is consistently reported as the point at which things start to improve.
General information only, not financial or medical advice. Contact a free regulated debt advice service, and if you are having thoughts of harming yourself, contact emergency services or a crisis line now.
