Rubber Ring

A Rubber Ring in a Sea of Debt
By Paula Marriss

Strange title for an article on debt, you might think, but what I’m doing here is throwing out a rubber ring into the sea of debt. It’s not going to rescue you and take you back to dry land. What it is going to do is give you something to hang on to while you get your bearings and hopefully, having done that, you can start swimming in the right direction.

OK, enough analogies for now, let’s look at the problem. This is the first most important step of solving your debt problems, realising that you both have a problem and that you need to do something about it.

First things first, all those bills and receipts that you’ve been shoving down the back of the sofa for months, you’re going to need to dig them out. We’re also going to need a bank statement so get hold of one of them. The only other things we need are a blank piece of paper, a pencil and your brain.

OK, still with me? Good, draw a line down the middle of the paper and on the left hand side write down all the money that’s going out every month. This isn’t just bills and mortgage payments, this is ALL the money so include shopping bills, money for cigarettes if you smoke, beer money, etc. etc. As much as you can think of that you spend in a month.