My Experience of Big Debt, and How I Turned Things Around
Every couple of weeks, we’re asking experts to give us a different perspective on money. Today, Clare Seal of @MyFrugalYear and author of Real Life Money: An Honest Guide to Taking Control of Your Finances tells us about her experience in overcoming debt. 💸
While the conversation around money has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years - particularly amongst women, with communities like Refinery 29’s Money Diaries and Vestpod providing a platform for honest discussion - there is still an unwillingness to talk about debt. So much so that many of the women posting on Instagram as part of the ‘#debtfreecommunity’ choose to remain anonymous, posting totals and techniques without using their real name.
Until very recently, I was anonymous myself, having set up the @myfrugalyear account when I was desperate for change - I had reached the hilt of my overdraft and the limit on most of my credit cards, and was struggling to keep up with the £27,000 of personal debt that was spread across them. I didn’t want anyone to know who I was, because I was angry with myself, and ashamed of having lost control of our family finances to this extent. I was scared of the judgment or pity of others, and yet nobody could possibly have judged me as harshly as I judged myself. I had reached a breaking point in my relationship with money, and I knew something needed to give - I’d tried to take the reins on this a few times in the past and never succeeded, so I knew it needed to be different this time.
I set about making a plan to pay off our debt without sacrificing all of life’s pleasures in the meantime, basing our monthly budget around a spreadsheet my husband had made and tracking all of my expenditure for the first time ever. I downloaded the Money Dashboard app, and was finally able to see all of my accounts in one place. I went back through my spending over the past twelve months, looking for patterns and identifying why I had made bad decisions, arming myself against repeating my mistakes in future.
The magic of knowing what was coming in, what was going out and what we could afford to use for treats and extra debt payments was incredible - I felt in control for the first time in years. When I started writing about the process, first on Instagram and then for my book, I started to understand myself better, and to see the debt as a symptom of my broken relationship with money, rather than part of my identity.
It’s been far from an easy, linear process - there have been boosts and setbacks and times when I’ve felt like giving up - but we are now a year on and almost £10,000 down. It’s not just the numbers that have changed, though. The peace of mind that comes with feeling in control and being able to see a light at the end of the tunnel is impossible to describe - we can finally make plans for the future without a Grand Canyon of debt standing between us and our goals. I don’t wake up anxious that direct debits night bounce, and I feel I’ve finally broken the cycle of financial difficulty and poor mental health.
As we all step into an uncertain new world following the spread of coronavirus, very few people feel secure in their financial situation. People who’ve never taken on debt before may be forced to rely on credit, which means there has never been a better time to talk about this; in fact, it’s vital that we do, because the shame around debt damages us both emotionally and financially. I’m proof that there’s always a way through this, no matter how bad things seem, no matter how many unarranged overdraft fees you’ve incurred, no matter how poor your credit score. We are all so much more than what we earn, what we own, or what we owe.
🌟 When Clare Seal reached what seemed like a breaking point in her relationship with money in spring 2019, she turned to Instagram to make herself accountable, posting anonymously about her journey out of debt as My Frugal Year. She immediately struck a chord, and in just one year found a following of 50k people, her posts offering advice and solidarity to a growing community of people in a similar situation. A new voice on the finance scene, Clare has already been sought out by the Telegraph, Huffington Post, Grazia and Hello! Magazine to give her opinion on topics relating to debt, money and the challenges facing millennials. Clare Seal is a working mother of two, and lives with her husband and children in South West England.
Find My Frugal Year on Instagram @myfrugalyear