My best kept secret has finally come to light in conversations with friends and family…
In 1993 I was in serious debt, having taken out loans that weren’t good and not managing money well due to easy credit from the banks and bad money management from my side.
Early days with money...
I earned enough money every year to keep me covered for each year at university. Some years I had to earn extra to cover my “extravagant lifestyle of drinking and smoking”.
If I ever borrowed money to buy a car it was paid out quite quickly and owned.
However, in later years around the late 80s and early 90s I discovered the magic Credit Card which the banks gave me with no application. So, I quickly used this wonderful device and extended the credit, buying cheap cars (mainly Citroens) and putting them on the road for our use.
I was working in the IT industry and some clients used credit and bank loans to purchase computer systems that I had sold them. One client suggested to me that I could finance my own system by borrowing excess money (more than the value of the system) to finance our new Apple Computer System for home use. I borrowed $40,000 for a $10,000 value system and could use the balance to pay off credit cards and only have one debt.
The only problem with this was that the repayments were quite large and a significant part of my monthly wage including commission.
So, moving forward, the repayments were quite an impact on our money as well as paying 19% on our home loan!!!
When I was late in payments, I received quite aggressive calls from the bank (Name withheld) every few days, very stressful.
One day after many weeks of stress I heard on the radio that there was an option to solve loan stress, please call this number…
So, I called the number and they said that I could become a Part X bankrupt which was the lesser of the bankruptcy evils. I decided that the stress would go away, and they would handle the aggressive lender!!
We went down the Part X track and agreed to pay back 10% of our debt.
Moving forward we sold our home in Seville, moved into a rental in Mount Waverley for our kid’s education and paid off all our debts!!
During that time, I had also purchased an investment unit for rental and to maintain our place in the housing market. Eventually had to sell this too and unfortunately had an outstanding debt to the lender. I agreed to repay this and did. However, during this time, the lender posted a bad credit notation on my credit record. Had to negotiate the removal of that as well, learning slowly here!!!!
Eventually, seven years later we started to look at buying a house again when we were out of the bankruptcy, and this was no longer on our credit record. Our neighbour, who we had helped after her husband had died unexpectedly, by having her over to dinner every Friday night and providing ongoing support, asked my wife why we didn’t have a home of our own. My wife said that we didn’t have a deposit. So, our neighbour said, “I will lend you the money”.
Many years later, after funding home loans and becoming a financial planner, I finally understood “MONEY”.
Bankruptcy was my best kept secret for many years and now I am comfortable talking about it. It’s very embarrassing, and put my family at great risk financially….
James Davey
July 2023
In 1993 I was in serious debt, having taken out loans that weren’t good and not managing money well due to easy credit from the banks and bad money management from my side.
Early days with money...
I earned enough money every year to keep me covered for each year at university. Some years I had to earn extra to cover my “extravagant lifestyle of drinking and smoking”.
If I ever borrowed money to buy a car it was paid out quite quickly and owned.
However, in later years around the late 80s and early 90s I discovered the magic Credit Card which the banks gave me with no application. So, I quickly used this wonderful device and extended the credit, buying cheap cars (mainly Citroens) and putting them on the road for our use.
I was working in the IT industry and some clients used credit and bank loans to purchase computer systems that I had sold them. One client suggested to me that I could finance my own system by borrowing excess money (more than the value of the system) to finance our new Apple Computer System for home use. I borrowed $40,000 for a $10,000 value system and could use the balance to pay off credit cards and only have one debt.
The only problem with this was that the repayments were quite large and a significant part of my monthly wage including commission.
So, moving forward, the repayments were quite an impact on our money as well as paying 19% on our home loan!!!
When I was late in payments, I received quite aggressive calls from the bank (Name withheld) every few days, very stressful.
One day after many weeks of stress I heard on the radio that there was an option to solve loan stress, please call this number…
So, I called the number and they said that I could become a Part X bankrupt which was the lesser of the bankruptcy evils. I decided that the stress would go away, and they would handle the aggressive lender!!
We went down the Part X track and agreed to pay back 10% of our debt.
Moving forward we sold our home in Seville, moved into a rental in Mount Waverley for our kid’s education and paid off all our debts!!
During that time, I had also purchased an investment unit for rental and to maintain our place in the housing market. Eventually had to sell this too and unfortunately had an outstanding debt to the lender. I agreed to repay this and did. However, during this time, the lender posted a bad credit notation on my credit record. Had to negotiate the removal of that as well, learning slowly here!!!!
Eventually, seven years later we started to look at buying a house again when we were out of the bankruptcy, and this was no longer on our credit record. Our neighbour, who we had helped after her husband had died unexpectedly, by having her over to dinner every Friday night and providing ongoing support, asked my wife why we didn’t have a home of our own. My wife said that we didn’t have a deposit. So, our neighbour said, “I will lend you the money”.
Many years later, after funding home loans and becoming a financial planner, I finally understood “MONEY”.
Bankruptcy was my best kept secret for many years and now I am comfortable talking about it. It’s very embarrassing, and put my family at great risk financially….
James Davey
July 2023
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