'Ello, .gs. Does anybody still use this thing? Anyway.
I've found myself in debt, jobless, money poor and (somewhat) property rich. I left my £50,000/pa job early last year due to a combination of issues and my life has slowly spiralled out of control since. Having only regained my senses in the last six months, I have found myself unable to secure employment and have been borrowing in excess off £11,000 from family to pay for my mortgage.
I've got debt collectors chasing me (well, emailing and phoning me) for sub-£500 apiece. I'm not too bothered about them but I do wonder what the actual chances of them taking me to court are.
I'm also trying desperately to sell my flat. Service charges are eating my arsehole even after switching from a slightly more egregious management company. I've been lent some paint and rollers and I'm determined to spruce it up and get it on the market ASAP. I think it's the only chance I've got of not going insolvent.
As for work: I really have been trying to get in anything but warehouses, supermarkets, and literally everything else I've tried don't want me. I don't know why. I've tried every permutation of CV and cover letter that my fractured mental state can manage and it's come to nought. Emails asking for clarification on their decisions have fallen on deaf ears (or eyes, I suppose.) Income is at zero and it is only by the good graces of my mum (who I'm fairly sure is tax evading in order to help me out) that I'm even able to live in the second bedroom of her dilapidated house. (Why yes, I am the one from the post about a year ago complaining about the state of my digs. I'm still there!)
Could I be doing anything more? I don't have a credit card or a driving license but I wouldn't be beyond moving elsewhere for the sake of employment if I could just get some startup capital to do it. I hope my flat sells.
Kind regards,
Concerned of Bumblefuckshire
Current stats: Property: 1bed flat, est. value £135,000
Cash: £18
Kills: 0
Swindon Town: nil
I'd suspect your previous job earning that much is getting you passed over as overqualified for a lot of basic jobs, so they pass over you in the expectation you'd only be there as a stopgap and leave quickly. A lot of those jobs don't bother checking referenced or anything though, so maybe just make up a new CV saying you've done that kind of work and making your past employment sound less impressive. I've been desperate and jobless before and honestly, lying on your CV is just one of the moves you have to make sometimes.
Obviously don't do that if you see a "proper" job you'd actually want longer term, but yknow.
Whereabouts are you located, roughly? And do you have a driving license? The need for drivers for online delivery services is massive these days, and many of them you don't even have to use a CV to apply for, and as long as you're not an idiot can essentially walk into. The barrier is that they're never exactly the most well paid or best work life balance, quite physical jobs, but for some people driving about all day is much more suitable than the traditional office 9-5, and that different environment might be all you need to find your feet again.
Also, if you are not claiming the bennies, swallow your pride and apply for anything and everything you can. Job seekers, universal credit, housing benefit, council tax reduction, the lot. You might not get accepted for them all, but you have been unemployed long enough that I think you're past the exclusion periods, and should be entitled at least to the basic allowance. That's better than having nothing at all coming in. You can then tell your debtors "look I've got jack shit, I'm already in debt, I only get benefits, most I can offer you is a quid a month" and basically indefinitely stall them.
Usually, not always but usually, they can't take you to court or come over to start nicking your stuff as long as you have made a good faith effort to address it and told them you've got fuck all to pay them, but you're working on it. The law is on your side when it comes to debt, thankfully. And as always give Stepchange and Citizen's Advice a ring.
Best of luck to you lad, anyway. The important thing is that you have, as you say, come to your senses and started trying to do something about it. Sooner you do that the sooner you'll be on top of it again.
If you haven't already done so, the first thing is to tell the debt collectors, your mortgage company and the management agency about your situation. Debt collectors generally aren't daft and they know that hounding someone who genuinely can't pay is a waste of effort. Taking someone to court is expensive and it's a total waste if they genuinely can't pay. Your mortgage lender might be able to offer you a break in payments or reduce your payments to interest-only if you ask. If you have other debts or you just need some advice, speak to National Debtline or Citizens Advice.
If you aren't claiming benefits, I'd strongly recommend swallowing your pride and signing on. It isn't a huge amount of money, but it's better than nothing. Once you've put in a claim, you can apply for a reduction on your council tax and a loan to cover most of the interest charges on your mortgage, repayable when you sell the house. You may also be able to claim towards your service charges.
If you're having mental health problems, tell the DWP when you apply - if you're classed as having limited capacity for work, then you won't have to prove that you're looking for work, only that you're taking steps to prepare for work. Again, if you need advice about any aspect of making a claim, speak to Citizens Advice.
Try speaking to a local employment agency. They usually have a good sense of the local labour market and might be able to point you towards vacancies that you hadn't thought of. Things are obviously going to be tougher for you if you're in a rural area and you don't have transport, but there are a lot of temporary roles opening up in the run-up to Christmas.
You might also want to think about doing a course, if you've got an FE college or training provider that you can travel to. You can get free training through the Skills Bootcamp or Free Courses for Jobs schemes; if nothing else, it's something to do and it'll keep the JobCentre happy while you look for work.
You don't need a CV or covering letter to get menial jobs. You don't even need to speak English much of the time. Get yourself down the agency and you should be working before the end of next week.
To be fair, that might not be true where OP lives. If he's in the arse end of Lincolnshire or Norfolk, then the pickings are genuinely going to be quite slim. The big employers who have a constant turnover of warehouse and production operatives are all clustered around the motorway network, which is obviously fuck-all use if you're stuck in Skegness.
Getting in touch with an agency is still a very good idea, mind.
It's almost certainly the case that Abdul has chosen Birmingham because he's got a cousin there who can give him a job, or at least let him kip on the couch for a bit.
It isn't impossible to up sticks and move somewhere else if you've got nothing in the bank, but you're gambling with becoming homeless, at least temporarily. That's not something I can recommend.
Converting to Islam takes quite a lot of effort from what I understand, so you're probably better off getting a job somewhere that doesn't require kipping on Abdul's cousin's couch. Plus you won't end up in Birmingham, so it's a win-win situation. Or you could join a Christian commune, they probably let anyone in.
>It isn't impossible to up sticks and move somewhere else if you've got nothing in the bank, but you're gambling with becoming homeless, at least temporarily.
I really don't know how people manage to do stuff like that. It's hard enough to move house even when you do have a job and money. On top of that even the lowest entry requirement jobs I've had still typically mess you about for 2-3 weeks while their HR department crawls through the paperwork, and then it's usually anything up to 6 weeks before you get your first wage depending how far through the month you were when you started.
That's a grotesque suggestion, but you have given me an idea - participate in a clinical trial. I've done it before and I can recommend it. There's inevitably a fair bit of pissing about with admin, you aren't guaranteed to be accepted on any given trial, but you can make two or three grand for a few days of doing not much. If you're struggling, that could be enough of a warchest to get you back on your feet.
>>9961 If you're willing to do whatever job you can get and you're not holding out for some upward career move it seems to me it'd be far easier to relocate with no possessions and £150 to your name than it would be to sell a house/coordinate tenancies and shifting a lifetime full of crap. If you have to slum it on the streets for a few days waiting for your first week's pay, so be it.
People say you can't get a job without a fixed address, but how true is that really? When you give an employer an address, how many actually use it for anything beyond internal record keeping?
>People say you can't get a job without a fixed address, but how true is that really?
I'd say it's pretty difficult, a lot of places nowadays don't bother with asking you for five years of references and all that, but they will run a background check through a company like Experian or the DBS etc. You'll fail that at the first hurdle without an address. They basically have to do their minimum due diligence to make sure you're not some kind of double paedo bestiality terrorist, or worse, an illegal immigrant.
I'd imagine the only kind of jobs you can get without having that ability to prove you are an upstanding citizen and you're "on the books" so to speak, is if it was a shady cash in hand job to begin with.
Even when I did "casual work" (ie zero hours contract) in a warehouse where I was probably the only native English speaker, it was paid monthly. I would actually really like weekly or fortnightly pay, it would make things easier if you have an unexpected expense and have to dip into your overdraft or what have you, but I have never encountered anything other than monthly pay.
>I'd say it's pretty difficult, a lot of places nowadays don't bother with asking you for five years of references and all that, but they will run a background check through a company like Experian or the DBS etc. You'll fail that at the first hurdle without an address.
You need an address, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the address where you currently live. The thing that most employers really care about is an identity document establishing your right to work in the UK. If they negligently employ illegal immigrants, they're criminally liable. An address proves nothing about your right to work in the UK.
>Even when I did "casual work" (ie zero hours contract) in a warehouse where I was probably the only native English speaker, it was paid monthly.
Weekly pay has made a real comeback since the cost of living crisis. A lot of those entry-level employers are now using Wagestream, a mobile app that allows you to access your wages whenever you like. I could be cynical about it, but it's genuinely really helpful even if it is a sticking plaster over the problems of low pay.
>An address proves nothing about your right to work in the UK.
No, but an address history does. I know of a few Eastern European folks who don't have UK identity documents but the fact they've lived here for over X number of years means they are legally able to remain here and work here. I'm not sure how exactly that works but they've not been deported or arrested so it must be above board.
Broadly you're right, but it's still the kind of thing most employers check up on. It's all about covering their arse.
And yes, being cynical about stuff like Wagestream is probably justified, it seems to me like an easy way to get yourself stuck in a debt trap because you took out a month's wage early, and as a result you constantly owe the company a month's work. Obviously it does add flexibility and most people won't be daft enough to do that, they'll just take a hundred quid early because they need some new clothes or whatever, but lots of people won't be sensible with it either.
